Marie from the Bay of Angels (1997)

Too much of everything

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

In terms of my personal bad movie test - I ended up pressing the fast forward button about 23 minutes into it and had to resist pressing the button throughout the film. Everyone looks stupid here. And the men all look ugly too.I compare this film to Mee Pok Man (from Singapore) because this is part of what I call the genre of "young attractive woman in an artsy film that one would like to think that it's going to go somewhere, but one just ends up feeling angry, annoyed, and betrayed at the characters." Not worth the time despite the good looking young women. Skip this one.

This film appropriated quite a bit from Catherine Breillat's 36 Filette, made nine years earlier: both are French, set in that country's oceanfront resorts, and star alienated 14-year old sexual temptresses who consort with older men.The difference is that Breillat is a film maker of insight, imagination, and courage who knows how to depict character. Whoever made this messy derivative (his name doesn't matter) has none of those abilities. This bumbling, superficial film is poorly conceived and constructed, and is even astonishingly prudish about showing the body of its leading lady, given that the film centers on her sexual attractiveness. Forget about this confused pallid imitative loser, and instead rent the real thing, the more intense and better characterized 36 Filette.

After seeing this movie, I want to view other French movies. They have a unique style of production that is more visual art than plot. Mixing up the time lines detracted from the story. Some characters didn't fit into the story very well. Marie (Vahina Gioconte) oozed sensuality and moodiness. Without her, the story would have been meaningless. Do young people really live like this? Ignore my spelling errors please.

Marie is a fourteen year-old who behaves as though she will never reach fifteen, at least without becoming pregnant. Her sultry scowl and nubile body attract all who encounter her, including an American Naval detachment. But her true love turns out to be someone who is more disturbed than her. Orso weaves through the film like a mosquito hovering over a potential meal. The beginning of this film also is the ending, and it's at times difficult to follow the director's flashbacks. The juxtaposition of the race drivers is over-done. We get the idea initially that life for this film is indeed in the fast lane and will never pull over to the right lane. However the performances are fine with Vahina Giocante (Marie) exhibiting (but tastefully) not only a beautiful body, but a talent as well. Frederic Miagra (Orso) plods his way through the film with a brooding appeal, only fleetingly losing his expression of despair.