L'ange noir (1994) User Reviews

Delirium of a sick imagination

[newjersian · 1/10 · 1 November 2020]

I love Michel Piccoli and that's the only reason for watching this movie, but I was tempted to turn off my player on several occasions. To sum it up: simplistic unbelievable story, amateurish direction and wooden acting. It is slow, boring and predictable. The film is full of foolishness, illogical and stupid actions, absolutely impossible behaviors and dialogues of real people. Degradation of French cinematography and a waste of Michel Piccoli's great talent.

Love it or hate it.

[pjl-7 · 10/10 · 13 March 2001]

This is a film you either love or hate. The plot is well constructed, the acting solid, even outstanding in parts (particularly the interview between Paul Delorme and Mme Pitot), the dialogue believable. Where it strains is in the odd surrealist fades, which leave the viewer confused for long moments until he figures out what is going on. The screenplay leaves untied a lot of loose ends that the book cleared up rather nicely, but in the 95 minutes available this is not too surprising. What is surprising, given the complexity of the plot and sub-plots, is how well the characters get developed in such a short film, especially some of the minor characters with little on-screen time. Michel Piccoli and Sylvie Vartan deliver sterling performances, and Mlle Vartan clearly demonstrates that she is not just another pretty face trying to change careers, but a consummate actress with great dramatic ability.

In common with too many French films, the soundtrack is poor quality (the interiors of French buildings tend to be large echo chambers, and this is never corrected in the postproduction sound processing), which probably won't bother an English speaking viewer too greatly, but makes following the unsubtitled version difficult, even for a native French speaker.

private vices, public virtues

[postcefalu · 9/10 · 1 February 2007]

Jean Claude Brisseau is not a prolific director. He takes his time to get back to his steps. Watching this hard, exhilarating, unstoppable proof of his talent you can clearly see that he needs to empty him in each frame, each second of his features. The outstanding scene in which Sylvie Vartan (recovering the best Catherine Deneuve), is paying for her blackmailing is the milestone of his career. The sexual tension, the rotten feelings, the laconic acceptation of a dark destiny... I obtain a great pleasure viewing a "non genre director" doing "film noir", like he was Chabrol, but trying to pass over the topics and penetrating the obscure angles of his absorbent plots.

Excellent Jean-Claude Brisseau's surprise

[searchanddestroy-1 · 26 December 2023]

It was a surprise for me to discover Jean-Claude Brisseau as a crime drama maker, he who mostly made dramas, pure dramas and rather low budget ones. Here, the cast proves a bigger envelope in the choices of actors: Michel Piccoli, Tcheky Karyo and a surprising Sylvie Vartan who, before this movie, made mainly crap comedies. Here, she proves that she could match any Hollywood femmes fatales in the line of Barbara Stanwyck or Lizabeth Scott, but due proportion being observed. I like this drama, mainly because of Sylvie Vartan's performance. It was released in movie theaters but still looks like a TV feature and certainly not destined to prime time audiences. Brisseau's trademark in many scenes, erotic, nude sequences.