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The Exterminating Angels(Les Anges exterminateurs)

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France · 2006
1h 43m
Director Jean-Claude Brisseau
Starring Maroussia Dubreuil, Lise Bellynck, Marie Allan, Frédéric van den Driessche
Genre Drama, Fantasy

François, a French filmmaker, is roused by an actress's intimate confession to explore the bounds of female pleasure in an experimental film about the thrill of transgression. However, while he attempts to delve into the meanings of forbidden desire, two watchful apparitions threaten his plans.

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What are critics saying?

60

The Hollywood Reporter by

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.

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

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

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.

70

Variety by Lisa Nesselson

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

New York Post by V.A. Musetto

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.

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