ANGEL face, or the Budweiser Kingdom – Review

Presented in the un Certain Regard section at the 71st Cannes film Festival, ANGEL face, the first film of Vanessa Filho, explores the childhood loss through the prism of an evil mother, where the aesthetics of light penetrates with more or less skill topics to strong emotions.

Its colors swaying to loss of sight, Ava had enlightened the hearts of the Critics ‘ Week last year. It was this spark of life, bathed in the last moments of innocence, as a first glance at a corner of blue sky, before the clouds come to darken this youth full of blue. However, in this darkness, in this danger young, there is always a light to show the way. Has the image of this ANGEL face, she would be a ray of sunshine to be that, in the end, a slight beam of light.

Yet, every scene is bathed in a sea of sparks. Those eyes, those photographic, and plastic. In this seaside town devoid of the crowds and vacationers, the camera is placed at the height of a child, as a way to capture the wonder and a certain beauty in the chaos that offer the world and society. The little fugitive ( Morris Engel, Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin) is not very far away: in this wandering mutine, the world is being explored with reckless abandon, and eye-opener, with that look, almost unconscious, on the problems of the adult world.

Lights pastel, these flashes yellow and rosé wines, to neon and these sunsets, Vanessa Filho filme life as something newborn, and childhood as a loss, the end of a day, a sudden drop to reality. A camera evolving over the emotions, where the big plans come to penetrate the inner landscape of its characters. This is why, in these Images the illusion of a fairytale, the real always comes to disrupt the enchantment. The gaze then becomes the vector of contradictions, linking the child to the addiction, to alcoholism, to depression.

Forced to grow, to face up to the absence of a mother, she abandons her innocence to try to mimic the adult role that his mother has refused to take.

A paradox where tangled joys and lights of a fairground, a school play, with the dependencies of the adult. Has like this innocent game where the fluff are exposed to the shots of whiskey. Or this dance in a nightclub, in a suggestive and cheeky, the young Elli : its movements are not those of a young girl, but show her wandering in an age that no longer really hers. Forced to grow, to face up to the absence of a mother, she abandons her innocence to try to mimic the adult role that his mother has refused to take.The roles are reversed : a mother who needs her daughter to frame, without having to send waltz its responsibilities. She donned the glasses like so many reality shows, chained to the vulgarity of his words and of his acts. She transforms her own wedding in the singular rupture alcoholic, and sung. Yes, one thing is for sure : Should not start. “You regret your deviations/ But now it is too late “. And in this game, Marion Cotillard shines in the pathos of his character : against the current, it is constantly on the wire between surjeu and accuracy, between excess and sincerity, and composed a character as badly-liked that it can be hurt.

Ayline Aksoy-Etaix composed it-also in a registry that is just as ambiguous : beyond the coldness of its facies, and the silence of her heart, she communicates with that look evocative gaze desperate and amazed by life. Is not Ana Torrent who wants to, but his performance is still quite remarkable. She internalizes her feelings, and by imitation, tries to bridge the loneliness and lost love by becoming a double : it is both this girl confused, and this mother is irresponsible. As to fill the lack of love around her. Yes, there would be a bit of Lack of Love in ANGEL face. And a bit of Virgin Suicides.A sort of leak of innocence, in search of a heart that will be willing to accommodate. In lack of to be regarded with affection. Yes, ” she runs, she runs, the disease of love, in the hearts of the children from 7 to 77 years old. […] It is sometimes suffer all along d’s a life. […] She is crying for the women, she is screaming in the shade. ” A lack of maternal protection that Elli, will translate in the figure unknown to the father : Julio, marginal, and former diver, played with delicacy by Alban Lenoir. Two beings alone, pushed around by life, jumping together into the void to find some comfort.

It is primarily an issue of identity crisis, where in the sand or alcohol, seek sensations, or simply an escape. The sheer exhilaration of life, or to flee from its realities.

Elli would somehow be the perfect opposite of the character of the 400 blows of Francois Truffaut, criss-crossing the wet sand in search of independence and rejection of supervision. And yet, whether it be Elli or of Antoine Doinel, first of all it is a question of identity crisis, where in the sand or alcohol, seek sensations, or simply an escape. The sheer exhilaration of life, or to flee from its realities. A description a disturbing childhood where the parallel would be made on the Cria Cuervos de Carlos Saura : the imaginary in the face of the absence of the mother figure, whether it is to imagine the ghost of a mother cajoleuse in Cria Cuervos , or to become the mother to be absent in imitating him in ANGEL face.It is in this despair nuanced as the plot manages to find its strength, where the court of recreates appears as the place where any knocks against it : the mockery the child, a circle where the children point the finger and ridicule the beings injured. A bit like the silence of the adults, where a glance is sufficient to make a judgment degrading treatment. In the course of this wandering child, time is running out, and the emotion we flows. An emotion sometimes lost in an aesthetic of dream-like situations which shocks do we leave an aftertaste of “Yeah” in the mouth. A excess form in any way taking the not on the merits, without losing the heart of his subject. Because of the heart, and passion, it is undeniable that Vanessa Filho door his first film with the assurance of a breath of cinema.

The words emerge with a heartbreaking truth ; words are transformed as in the raw images, and yet so sensitive. Images are stronger than the evils, and of words more powerful than Pictures. ANGEL face does certainly not of this magnitude emotional, but his ability to put in scene the innocence is sacrificed and the loss of reference points is quite honorable. Through this intimate portrait at the height of a child, ANGEL face appears, however, as a work that is sincere, effective and successful. Delicate ? No doubt. Perhaps missing this Porque Te Vas, and this emotion without grandiloquence to make ANGEL face, a strong work and powerful.

Fabian

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