The Exterminating Angels

I gave this a 7. I don't agree with some of the comments here that it was a 'turkey' or a really bad attempt at an arty film. It was an arty film...but then aren't all French films? Hehe. This film does show some pretty erotic situations and, in a form of humorous way the director is playing with us. The scenes are being shot as a test for the actresses to show undiluted, un-acted true passion through * on camera...and it really does seem that we, the viewers of the real film, are watching just that very movie. Clever stuff. That, however is unfortunately is as clever as it gets. The story moves along slowly but it is a nice and relaxed pace. Enough happens to keep your interest easily. . There are a few holes in the plot; strange irrelevant people; twists; turns; ghostly figures that I could not follow, but that could have been a bad attempt at making it more 'Arty' as another commenter said. . If I said any more I would have to use the Spoiler warning but I will leave it now. The stuff I mentioned already is in the trailer so not a spoiler!! . I would say Go and watch this movie. Just don't expect to completely understand it though. I just HAVE TO say one more thing The women and beauty you witness in this movie are, well, just that: Beautiful. . A pleasure! . As for the debate on if it is * or art. . It is neither. It always confuse me, why we have this big 'downer' on sex, nudity and well, the discovery and display of the human body! It is just life!

This movie is about a director who wants to make a film, with a plot which has never been done before. He tries to experiment with various unusual ways to push the boundaries of "what should be" or "what should'nt be". In spite of the warnings by his loved ones he gives himself up to his curiosity. He lets his lust control his actions. The lust forces him to venture forbidden territory (or taboo, as one might call it). His lust eventually, drives him to a place filled with deceit, pain and despair. Overall I feel the movie is only worth watching for an audience who can cope with the darkness and the ill-feeling which the movie makes you feel. That is why I did not like the movie because I felt the story was not so brilliant and too strange to be very honest.

I shall not deal with plot but just to say that this is pure filmmaking in the finest and most sublime manner. Those of us who can still view or project 4:3 ratio with size go for the authentic in-camera US R1 DVD that is 4:3 the UK DVD is 16:9 this is an ACADEMY ratio film. Having read the on-screen credits I see no mention of Digital Intermediate... ...miracles...blessings...hoorah !! This film would look amazing on an IMAX screen. The compositional framing in an age of mostly fake DI scope presented films is what cinema should be and shows the superior composition that ACADEMY ratio allows for. The girls are wonderful, the eroticism never sleazy or * like but genuine and sensual. The lead actor totally natural and compelling. This film has a beautiful aromatic feeling it is a revelation. Wonderful !!

I have never been so utterly disgusted by a movie since I saw The Birth of a Nation - but at least I understood WHY that movie was the way it was. Where as we can use the excuse that D.W. Griffith was born in a closed-minded time while objectively looking at his movie, the same cannot be said for the director of Exterminating Angels. Perhaps if the movie was not based on real life events, it would render me with some other emotion besides disgust for all those involved. The fact that he believes he never did anything wrong is just astounding. Not only were his actual actions as a director insanely un-professional, he backed up his supposed innocence by portraying the females in this movie in a VERY negative light. This is nothing but the phsyical * of a male-written lesbian porno flick with the mental * of a non-sensical, pretentious, low-budget film that is trying way to hard to be "artsy".

Fictionalized story based on the preparation the director went through making his previous film. The story concerns the director talking to women and auditioning them by having them * or engage in lesbian sex for their on screen role.The women open up to him and during the try outs he finds, at times the women, while clearly enjoying themselves can't always give him what he wants (what ever that is). I'm not sure what its all about or what the point was but I really enjoyed it both times I've seen it now. A funny sexy off kilter film with spirits and apparitions wandering through it, this is plainly adult viewing. I liked it and its seemingly frank adult discussions of sex (though I would love any women to tel me how true the feelings of the women in this film are). Worth a look

It's about time to see an art movie that has good female nudity. Lately, most of these so-called "art" films have just been an excuse to show erect penises or exploit the male body. (Like Shortbus) Although the closet-homosexuals like movies like Shortbus, heterosexuals will find Exterminating Angels far more satisfying. Even though the director does show some pretensions, particularly with the concept of the angels involved in his life, this was MORE than made up for by the great erotic scenes. I watched this movie 3 times on cable just because of those scenes. In particular, one of his actresses uses a small rubber ball to * herself to *. Very sexy. The movie is loosely based on the director's life and his experiences with some actresses who were unhappy that he did not choose them for a role in one of his films. As they say, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and they went after him by claiming "sexual harassment" (even though they were willing participants)and even taking vigilante action. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. You will have to watch the film to see how everything unfolds but the underlying message is clear; women can be like the Sirens of Greek mythology, their beauty and sexuality lure men to their destruction. I highly recommend watching this film.

Sex is universal to every art in every time, in every culture. It's universal because it's as animal as every man is. So, no theme is more richly treated, and more thoroughly investigated as sex. That raises the bar of demand, in other words, if you want to do anything interesting that concerns sex you have only two choices: -either you do something that, although not original updates somethings that had been previously done; -you find any dark corner of sex, usually tied to other equally fascinating worlds, of the human mind or such; this film does nothing in any of the 2 options. it's as dull as its writer sounds. This i say taking in consideration the lines, and an interview i saw on the DVD extras. Apparently this film was made as some sort of provocation against some sex related charges related to this director's previous film. I think he might see this as an exorcism or something that could be mapped into the realms of the "art" world. Some personal exploitation of the limits of voyeurism in sex; a man who studies female * by watching (and filming) it. I suppose later in the process of developing this, Brisseau himself understood how thin the whole thing was, so he placed a couple of Wenders' borrowed angels, to add a layer of mysticism to the whole watching game and, i suppose, so we could identify with the more active angel, as a voyeur of the voyeur situations. This could actually work, but only if the director was more interested in making a film, rather than looking like he masters the inner depth of the female *. As it is, this is a shameless depiction of the female body, some women are really and genuinely appealing, but the whole work is just dishonest. I really would prefer to have this made into a softcore exploitative film, than this annoying piece. Anything Brass or Franco do is better than this. My opinion: 1/5 http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

French film makers are prone to mixing banal philosophy and soft core *. Their tiresome philosophies of pleasure are ALWAYS mere justification for voyeurism and mental * for the predominantly male viewers, some of whom evidently hope that their wives and girlfriends will be stimulated too. They can thus escape the horrors of monogamy, if only in their minds. This transparently false justification is the essence of kitsch. On an intellectual level this film is no better than Exit To Eden, which also justified voyeurism and diluted forms of perversion with the same pretentious twaddle. But at least we are spared from seeing men in G strings and Rosie O'Donnell in a black corset and fishnet stockings. The borrowings from Orphee are obvious. Death is a sinister beauty, corrupt police do her work, and coded radio messages appear at random. Even the title borrows from Bunuel. However, little is done with these elements. They are tiny bits of brain candy for the critics, like finding Waldo. We do see some pretty girls, but they are mostly insane. BOTTOM LINE: For men who need a jump start.

As nearly as I could tell, this film is about the heavy cosmic price that's extracted (only sometimes, unfortunately) from the clueless. The film's filmmaker, Francois, wants to make a film about orgasms. He doesn't want * stars because they might fake orgasms, so he goes out and finds, uh, "real" actresses. Because he's clueless, Francois doesn't notice that his actresses, not to mention his wife and just about everybody else, are waving enormous red flags, along with sirens and flashing danger lights, in his direction. And, because he's an eedgit, Francois eventually has very bad things happen to him, but not as bad as they could be because he's such a nice eedgit that even one of his exterminating angels cuts him some ill-advised slack. Meanwhile, around him swirl a variety of pretentiously mysterious signs and apparitions that describe the amount of effort that heaven, or whatever, is spending to demolish Francois. Not least of these signs are the cryptic messages that mirror those sent via radio to the French Resistance during WW2. Do these signify that the relationship between the sexes is an undeclared war? Who knows. Cocteau used them much better in Orphee. However, and this is a big however, this film has some very hot women having sex with each other. French (or Belgian) women -- yum! So there it is -- a pretentious film about the downfall of a bonehead, filled to the brim with luscious women. Your call.

This film is nothing like as meaningful as I am sure the makers would have wished but neither is it tosh. Brisseau tells of a director who sets out to capture the beauty of the female * during *. Not interested in the * actresses' rehearsed turns he seeks young women not used to performing the act so that he might thereby capture the 'mystical moments'. He also proposes that if she transgresses the norm she will more likely reach the maximum sensations. Hence, we get * in a restaurant, in a hotel room with the door open, with other girls etc. I do not particularly take issue with any of this but I just don't think it's particularly profound. It is a slight theory which if proved does not really lead us anywhere. Where it does lead us of course is to the frank and pretty explicit presentation of some pretty erotic scenes. Not all bad then! Simple enough to start with this gradually turns into a melodrama involving the director's wife, the girls' partners and even the police and the ghost of his grandmother. Gradually we seem to loose sight of what seemed the film's only premise, but who knows maybe Brisseau really was making a film about the nature of love and how men and women are affected so differently.