Week 14

I saw a really interesting French movie yesterday called Angel-A. It was about a guy living in Paris named Andre who is down on his luck and in a lot of debt until an angel comes to help him. Angela is not your typical angel. She's about six feet tall and wears a tiny little black dress with some four inch heels. She smokes like a chimney, beats up Andre's debtors and she actually describes her look as "sexy bitch." The movie was made in 2005 but it is shot in black and white with a really high contrast. This makes the movie especially interesting because it makes Angela, the angel, look so dark and we're used to seeing angels portrayed as glowing white figures. Actually, the entire movie is shot with an incredible emphasis on composition. In one of my favorite scenes Angela is standing behind Andre and they are both looking in the mirror. She is about a foot taller than him and in the scene she just looks like a giant. In the scene, she makes Andre proclaim his love for her and as he does she disappears behind him and he is left proclaiming his love for himself. This is really interesting because Andre has such low self-esteem that the viewer knows what Angela is doing.