(2006; Les Anges Exterminateurs, French) Into the bedroom of François (Frédéric van den Driessche), a filmmaker, and his wife, as they are sleeping, the apparition of his grandmother briefly visits with a warning: "You have to watch out for yourself" because for her it will be too "dangerous and difficult to help you." Also the silhouettes of a pair of fallen female angels (not quite witches, they confide to each other) appear then disappear; often accompanying them is a mechanical, disembodied voice issuing inscrutable instructions or coded information, such as: "The lampposts are in need of their scarlet coats," "blood of airports … flooding blue grass," and a reference to a desert as "a chained hell without flames."

While seeking five ingénue actresses for an erotic thriller, his interview with 20-year-old Virginie, having completed the screen test during which she achieved an orgasm for the first time ever, who candidly speaks of her "revelation about my forbidden self," though she eventually declines his offer to become one of his actresses, inspires François later to pursue a new project, exploring taboos and pleasures of women. Another, Olivia, says she's "willing to be aroused on camera," but after sharing confidences with the director, declines to be filmed.

Searching for young women with the potential for exhibitionism (though he doesn't want porno actresses since he's looking for genuineness in women's reactions to doing what would normally be unacceptable), he interviews dozens who refuse to participate after hearing what would be expected of them. In a brasserie Julie (Lise Bellynck), saying she has nothing to lose, approaches François, having heard of his search for actresses willing to do the unthinkable; she performs uninhibitedly for his camera, employing a small ball inserted into her vagina.

Uninterested in being an actress, Agnes shows up, asking him to teach her, without touching her, how to have an orgasm; she performs a silly vamp act (for which, she says, she only does for her boyfriend) for him to judge (hiding his smirk) whether or not its sexy.

Coming to see François in a café, one of his earlier finds Rebecca poignantly expresses her disillusionment with her success as an actress, which led her to self-deceit, sleeping around with boys and girls, and seeing others actresses with "egos as big as cathedrals." She urges him to get away from filmmaking before it's too late. But in director Jean-Claude Brisseau's enchantingly erotic, poetic, provocative thriller (exciting, delighting, shocking) of feminine flesh and the feelings it veils, François, another Job in God's drama, is a mixture of intelligence and foolishness, unwilling to abandon his artistic vision under extremes of temptation and punishment.

An interviewee, Céline, admits to having acted in porno films in which everyone behaved "weird and sluttish," but then she says all actresses are whores for roles.

Agnes's friend Charlotte (Maroussia Dubreuil) submits to François's audition (with an angel at his shoulder, like a muse, recommending this one) in a restaurant, first alone and then with Julie, touching each other under the table according to the director's instructions, drawing the waitress's uncomfortable attention to their curious conduct, before leaving for a hotel room where they mutually masturbate while charming, childlike François (who scrupulously avoids touching the girls) observes.

Alone in the hotel room with Charlotte after Julie leaves to see her boyfriend, François listens to Charlotte's unveiling her life story of 21 years: on her own since thirteen from a broken home (both parents psychiatrists), recently quitting sessions with her shrink (sometimes finding herself on the verge of despair) and relationship with her boyfriend, saying that for her "affection comes fast and lasts." When Julie returns, following a fight with her boyfriend, the two girls go off together club hopping while François, declining their offer to come along, goes home to his wife, whom he ravishes.

He explains to her how the women are taking him into their taboo erotic fantasies from which he will compose a script for the film; uncertain of his motives (the angels observing), she warns of potential emotional blackmail, fearful of losing him. In the morning, inebriated from the night's carousing, Charlotte from a café calls François at home; he takes her to her apartment, which has been wrecked, which she (at first attempting to seduce him) explains in part by saying, "a devil possesses me at times."

Needing a third actress for his concept, François interviews Stéphanie (Marie Allan), whom he does not at first recognize as the waitress from the restaurant where he'd taken Charlotte and Julie; Stéphanie says she's Charlotte's friend, both having had the same shrink. Needing no urging to release her irrepressible fantasies, Stéphanie turns the tables on the usually cool and collected François, making him somewhat uncomfortable with her expressed desire for debauchery with five men at once.

All three girls (none of whom admits to being a lesbian) meet in a hotel room, removing each others' clothes and any remaining restraint, entangling themselves on a bed in a writhing scene of limbs and lust as François aims his camera on their equipollent saturnalia. Again at home François's wife attempts to caution him that the girls have him under a spell, pleading with him to give up this obsessive project, arguing that what he seeks is extremely rare and can only be found in real love.

While visiting with Stéphanie and Charlotte (the latter confesses she's in love with the former) to help them practice their dialogue, François encounters Charlotte's male friend, who delivers a cryptic comment (possibly a veiled threat). Later, just before filming when the three girls find out he's still looking for other actresses (standard precaution prior to production to have replacements in the event of someone's dropping out), they angrily accuse him of betrayal: "We did everything for you."

In the dressing room after Charlotte has a terrible fit, destroying furniture, requiring restraint, the producer refuses to offer her a contract; Stéphanie in retaliation for her friend's expulsion makes a scene, getting herself fired as well: "They'll pay dearly for this."

The film is finally completed, with Céline and another actress brought in as replacements; Julie disappears soon after its release into theaters. Yet the question François had hoped to answer remains a riddle as much as before: Why does sex lead to such violence and hypocrisy? Both of which, along with his wife's leaving him, suddenly descend upon François with a vengeance, though Julie will once more cross his path, delivering a heartfelt message of her deep, intense passion for the godsmacked auteur.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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