Angel (2007)

Fresh and Exciting

Admirable film.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Not easy to classify, Francois Ozon's Angel just about keeps you watching. At one level it's a 'Rise and Fall of ... saga, on the other it's a bodice-ripper once removed, and on yet a third it's a chocolate box full of soft centres with just one acid drop lurking in the second layer. The protagonist as played by Romola Garai is a one-off, a total eccentric who goes her own way not caring a whit or a jot who she upsets, who laughs at her, who loathes her. Her goal is to be a writer and though we never hear a quotation from one of her novels it is clear that her role model is Barbara Cartland. Against the run of play she lands a publisher whilst still in her teens and never looks back - at least not till she reaches thirty-five at which point she is burnt out. I have still to see what all the fuss is about in the case of Francois Ozon and this entry fails to make it clearer.

Angel Deverell (Romola Garai) imagines herself to be a writer. Night after night she writes of her imaginative world. At school, she is ridiculed for her fantasies, and her mother (Jacqueline Tong) has no idea of her talent. A London publisher Theo (Sam Neill), publishes her first book despite her arrogance and his reservations. The novel is a bestseller. She writes another and another and another, and so on.At the height of her fame, she meets the painter Esmé (Michael Fassbender), and is immediately stuck, even if he is even more arrogant that she is. And, sad to say, more untalented.This is the key to this film. It is a satire of those stories of the period. There are only two serious people in the film. The rest are caricatures of popular characters and settings.British writer Elizabeth Taylor's novel, based upon Marie Corelli, a long-forgotten English novelist of the 19th Century, was translated to the screen by François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women), who also directed. He certainly captured the ego Corelli was reputed to have.The life she lived or the life she dreamed? That is the question of this film. There is no doubt that for a few brief moments, Angel was never in touch with reality. It makes for great satire.

Now I must admit I've not read the book, but I cannot believe that it can be this bad. The dialogue is awful. At the beginning of the film the lead (totally out of her depth) speaks like a 21st century adolescent. What child in Victorian times would have spoken to her mother like she did, stomped off, slammed her bedroom door and not come down to dinner? I was amazed that she didn't switch on her I-Pod. A totally unsympathetic character - gauche is probably a compliment. And the literature she was supposed to be producing? Gothic rubbish (see Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey for a put down of this tripe)? The outcome of the relationship with her husband was totally predictable - oh, how ironic at the end! What a waste of Sam Neill and one of my favourite actresses, Charlotte Rampling. Tyntesfield looked good though - mind you, in these days of 'global warming' we don't get snow in Wraxall anymore.

Francois Ozon has always veered between two very distinct styles; the more realistic, almost gritty visual style found in films such as Under the Sand and Criminal Lovers, and the highly stylised camp of Sitcom and 8 Women.Angel definitely falls into the latter category, with its candy coloured visuals and big dramatic plot twists and character nuances harking back to the feel of Hollywood pictures from the 40s, like Gone With The Wind.Everything is designed to imitate this era of film-making from the score, the heavily melodramatic "rags-to-riches" storyline, to even the use of rear projection during the travelling scenes. These are all implemented to increase the unreality and fantasy of the film and give it that "classic movie" feel.At first I found the actual story and characters almost second fiddle to the look and sound of the film, but Ozon isn't out to parody, more to homage or pastiche. Angel's sudden and cartoony rise to being a prominent literary figure is silly and fun, but towards the end as her vision of fantasy starts clashing with reality, the film turns out to be unexpectedly moving.Angel is far from being a heavily moralising tale about true love and happiness over gaudy extreme and is more a joyous celebration of fantasy over reality, a wonderful pastiche of historical romance where the girl manages to win the grumpy gloomy bachelor and runs after him in the rain as they kiss passionately under a shining rainbow as the score swirls in that classic forties way you never hear anymore.It's a wonderful and funny and frivolous film and yet also tragic and moving at times. With this much love and joy up on screen it's such a shame some people seem to miss the point of it and criticise the "bad special effects" and "bad acting". Instead you should simply enjoy the deliberate unreality of the visuals, music and plot of this brilliant, sumptuous movie.