60
Alternately provocative and highly silly, the film overcomes its more ludicrous aspects through its glossy visual style, its frequent doses of humor and the obvious associations it evokes to its creator's real-life experiences.
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70
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
One of Mr. Brisseau's subjects is the volatility of desire, the way the path of erotic curiosity can swerve from satisfaction into recrimination and confusion. A porno-philosopher in the venerable French tradition, he blends a frank appeal to the audience's nether regions with some teasing attention to its mind.
70
A luminous picture, beautifully made, loaded with symbolism and mystical-religious imagery, about an artist's self-destructive quest for an unreachable grail. It's also a deliberately prurient spectacle designed to be arousing and troubling -- most viewers, I imagine, will have both reactions at various times (and maybe at the same time).
30
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Exterminating Angels is meant as an autocritique--and yet the director can't get past his notion of himself as a fearlessly transgressive artist-hero, a martyr to the limitations of male gaze.
50
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
Soft porn for people who like to watch - and want to be punished for it.
70
Brisseau trains his deft camera on the crescendo of female sexual pleasure and how women can heighten the intensity of already blissful sensations via transgressive flourishes. If exiting viewers could all be asked "Was it good for you?" the likely answer is "Yes."
75
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Like "Secret Things," the film is ultimately infuriating, subtle, self-indulgent, astute and disingenuous, which makes for great -- if divisive -- conversation.
50
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
The new movie, for all its huffing and puffing, explores very little, even if some of it is sexy in a Howard Stern-meets-"9 1?2Weeks" way.
50
Brisseau obviously aims to shock - and he does. Now shocking is A-OK with me - but only if it's part of a something bigger. Exterminating Angels is beautifully lensed and acted, but it lacks substance.