French film makers are prone to mixing banal philosophy and soft core porn. Their tiresome philosophies of pleasure are ALWAYS mere justification for voyeurism and mental masturbation 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.

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 orgasm 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 orgasm. 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

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 masturbate herself to orgasm. 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.

This is one of those movies that you love or hate, but that moves you anyway. It has so many details, so many reactions of the characters so the pleasures game that the director wants to play that is difficult for me to treat the film only in only direction or conclusion. As you may have read before, it tells us about a film director in his forties that is shooting an erotic scene and he discovers how the actress enjoys breaking the taboo of masturbation in front of a camera. She tells him how intense and marvelous that feeling was, but after a time they meet by random and she tells him he traumatized her... now the director is interested about what crosses to someone's mind when breaking a rule himself has imposed. I will not say this is a psychologist study, nor a pornographic film although the extremely explicit content, but it is such and intense and dark look about how we can become blind by our passions instead of use our head and the advices we receive from our friends (wife and grandmother in the film). And we all know how naturally and honestly french talk about feelings, which make the film believable. For me, it was a whole experience and, with the Danish film Princess, and maybe the Swish Snow White and Brannagh's The Magic Flute, the only worthy film of the Sevilla 06 film festival.