Exterminating Angels

Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau

Audiences confused by the detailed sensuality in Exterminating Angels should understand something: French

filmmaker Jean-Claude Brisseau has essentially created autobiographical porn. The director went to trial late last year to face charges from disgraced actresses who claimed he forced them to masturbate for him while auditioning for his 2002 thriller Secret Things (they didn’t land the roles). Indeed, Brisseau seems to have coaxed several women into pleasuring themselves during private rehearsal sessions, but if you believe the stance put forth in Angels, his motives were entirely professional. The court’s verdict was a suspended jail sentence and a hefty fine, but now viewers have the option of judging the case for themselves. 

The semi-fictional story follows esteemed auteur François (Frederic van den Driessche), innocently intent on creating a semi-improvisatory movie built around select performers’ sexual proclivities. Unsurprisingly, the project presents a tough casting scenario: most of the actresses he encounters refuse to cross the boundaries he requires, and those willing to meet the physical requirements don’t match his aesthetic. Over time, a trio of enticing woman emerge to fit the parts, and François begins a calculated round of rehearsals. He makes it clear that his movie must exclude his own fantasies, although the claim seems unlikely, given the way that he rushes home to bang his wife following a particularly steamy practice session. Even if the director manages to remain somewhat distanced from his subjects, they don’t pay him the same professional courtesy—a tactical error on his part. Chaos ensues when the girls grow jealous at François’ decision to hold auditions for back-ups.

The conflict arises from naiveté: François mistakenly assumes that he can project his vision without involving the emotional fragility of the incredibly volatile women willing to engage in orgiastic behavior at his command. Informed by a perceptive porn star that “actors are all whores for the role we want,” François doesn’t realize that he’s essentially creating a form of prostitution, persuading women to unveil themselves for the sake of art while simultaneously remaining cold and businesslike. Their anguish at his treatment doesn’t seem unreasonable, but Brisseau’s presumed alter ego remains a sympathetic character, a well-intentioned artist misguided by his own experimental impulses. Providing the movie an additional layer of disorientation, the questionable advice of his invisible guardian angel (Raphaële Godin) drives his decisions.  

François’ flawed judgment gives Angels a strong narrative thrust, but the sum of its parts feel surprisingly light, like a romantic comedy channeling “The Twilight Zone.” Its self-reflexive tendencies remind me, oddly enough, of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the late entry in the Freddy Krueger franchise where the acclaimed horror director inserted himself into the story as his monstrous creation began attacking the world that gave rise to its existence. Brisseau’s monster is much more subtle than Freddy, but similarly invasive. The sex scenes are intriguingly staged as Hitchcockian suspense sequences, including a particularly memorable moment when François convinces two of his leads to touch each other while sitting at a restaurant. It’s an interesting mechanism: sex as a point of fascination, rather than pure fetish.

Still, Angels doesn’t offer the inspired amalgam of fornication and sentimentality brilliantly executed in John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. It’s far too sullen for that—and less explicit, surprisingly enough. The merits of Angels stem from Brisseau’s nuanced portrait of desire masquerading as inspiration, which makes the movie more of a self-indictment than I imagine he intended.