An Angel at My Table

It's a biography of New Zealand author Janet Frame played by three different actresses over her life. She was born in 1924. Her large family is relatively poor. She's a chubby sensitive kid with big wild red hair. As a young teacher (Kerry Fox), she has an emotional breakdown and spends time in a mental hospital. She is diagnosed a schizophrenic. With her mother's approval, she is admitted to a mental hospital for over 8 years where she is subjected to 200 shock treatments barely escaping brain surgery. This is an interesting portrait of a life. It isn't that dramatic except for the hospital section. It's more a series of events where a nervous Janet is belittled and overlooked. It doesn't fit the traditional three act play structure. It's a simple straight time line of events. Jane Campion uses her style of directing. It's natural and confident. A more standard biopic would concentrate on the 8 year hospital stay making a drama out of it. Instead, this way is a more humanistic way of showing a life. Kerry Fox is terrific and the little girl has an unforgettable look.

Superficially, this is a sort of "My Brilliant Career," meets "A Beautiful Mind." It features one of the most extraordinary actresses, new to me. I saw her in "Intmacy" and had to find more. It is made by a talented and sometimes engaging filmmaker who explores how women are haunted. It is about a writer whose books don't grab me, but whose story does. She believed herself haunted. The problem is that these three songs from different souls don't overlap that much. Frame created written images that were teased out of a struggle with life, one that infused her. Her sanity came from the writing. She didn't write about insanity and marginalization, she wrote from them to counter and co-opt them somewhat. This engages the reader because most of us are afraid to go as deeply into the darkness as these visions indicate. That's a different thing entirely than the story Campion has chosen to give us, which is about all the external agency that surrounded her. I cannot think of an instance where the literary kite and the cinematic string are in such different dimensions. Sure, its an interesting story that someone's light survived, I suppose. But we never see that light, or the ledges that were climbed, or the images that were carried out for us. What's left for Fox to do is emote visually. She does an extraordinary job, quite apart from the fact that it is ineffective in this container. I really do think she's something — another of those Australian/New Zealand crowd that just seem to have something that is rare elsewhere. She and the girls who play her younger selves are redheads. That's not at all a cinematic device, though it is used cleverly to mend the three actresses. Frame actually had that Clarabelle hair. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Despite the numerous flaws of this movie, and unless one has half a brain or very poor taste, it's impossible to dislike this little gem. Jane Campion has a real talent to coregraph the character's inner worlds on screen, and reveal them openly to the viewer. It's a very strange gift as it almost never uses obvious "tricks", I mean I find it difficult to explain the way she does this. The use of emotionally manipulative music is obvious, of course, but it doesn't even bother me, on the contrary I let myself go, which is amazing considering my allergy to manipulative scores. But anyway this use of music does NOT explain the emotional power of "Angel" or "Piano", it's only a contribution. With all its weaknesses (mainly in the second act, in which the editing and continuity are awkward), "Angel" is another proof that cinema is indeed an art, and that making "art" cinema doesn't mean making artsy-fartsy movies for the snobbish. Here what we have as a result is real poetic power, not intellectual performance (though the latter was obviously needed to reach the goal..). I'll always prize filmmakers that are able to put so much heart in what they do. We badly need them. Oh and now that I've seen this one, I won't ever look at Jackson's derivative "Heavenly creatures" with the same awe.

i cannot believe everything fell together so perfectly that this movie became possible - absolutely stunning masterpiece! Finding such a child actress and the adolescent actress and the adult one, the light, the colors, the landscapes and dresses, and hair, and skin and bookcovers, all the beds and blankets, chockolat and psychiatric clinic, London and Paris and Spain and cookies and her purse, all i wanted to do is to fix her teeth and love and take care of her forever. After 10 years of search, when i didn't even know the name of movie that i saw on TV one late night, because nobody heard of such a movie ever, i finally got my hands on the DVD today and I am so very happy!

This want even a movie. It was so boring and like watching snippets of a school day where nothing happens. All the death and horrors she sees and it's getting her period that makes her crazy? No. And they got the ugliest actors to play her. She had unruly hair, not a jacked up perm. Her mom did all of the other girls hair but hers was a rats nest? Just a boring unimpressive film.

I think this film is another fine example of Kiwi talent! Some incredibly original literature, film, television, and acting talent originates from the island nation of New Zealand. "An Angel At My Table" is one of the great examples. The first time I saw this film (or tele-film) I was left emotionally affected by Janet Frame's life. I could not believe how easy it was for someone to be treated the way she was just because she was shy, socially awkward and had curly, red hair. How times have changed! Nowadays if you are not a freak ... you are a freak! It is scary to think how easy it was, apparently at that time, for a person to be thrown into a madhouse. Not to mention the deplorable conditions of those types of institutions. Initially, I felt sorry for Ms. Frame but then I realized she probably has had a fuller life than I have had (or probably ever will). She has accomplished so much and given pleasure to the many who have read her stories and poetry. Watching this film has prompted me to begin looking for her writings since I have been so intrigued by her story. I was glad to see that by the end of the movie she had begun to become comfortable with herself and open her shell. Biographical information on Ms. Frame seems sketchy. I have not found much information about her life after the period where the film ended. Thank you Jane Campion for another wonderful character driven film (albeit a real-life character this time)! The only real criticism I have of the film is the portrayal of Frame's time in the institution. While the film did not make it pretty nor gloss over the situation in general, sources I have read indicate Janet was dangerously close to receiving an operation that seems similar to a lobotomy. The operation, if performed, would have left Janet an emotionless, child-like creature and was not adequately depicted. But for the grace of her publication, she was saved.

Jane Campion's "An Angel at My Table" is a superbly competent biography of New Zealand writer Janet Frame. Frame, who suffered the death of two siblings as a child, was wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill. She was institutionalised for eight years and received over two hundred shock therapy treatments. Sharing like themes with "Sweetie" (Campion's first feature which I highly recommend), both films deal with emotionally driven misfits. I admire the fundamental narrative, as oppose to the oversentimental maudliness of a televised mini-series. In fact, the American theatrical version is an editing of such programming. I would have preferred seeing the longer version, because some parts are brief and required further explanation. Kerry Fox is magnificently capital as the older Frame. I did not realise, until an IMBD inquiry, she was the female lead in "Shallow Grave". Overall, Frame's life is compelling drama and Campion's portrayal is intelligent. 3 out of 4 stars.

"An Angel at My Table" (New Zealand, 1990): It's been three years since I've last watched this film. There is NO further reason to wonder if it should be in my "top" category. It is created by Jane Campion from the writer Janet Frame's autobiographies of her harrowing life. We join Janet during childhood, move through the teenage years and into adulthood, as she struggles for a place - ANY place - in the world...but deep down, writing is her one reliable love. Three actresses were needed for the role of Janet, and all do wonderful jobs, especially depicting someone who always feels on the outside, and longs to be included. Jane Campion, one of my favorite film makers, presents a powerful, subdued, and melancholy work of Art. It is not an amazing film due to every camera shot or the quality of sound recording… THIS work is great for its acting, and its story telling. It has as much emotion as one heart can hold for 157 minutes.

source: An Angel at My Table

Trailer—An Angel at My Table