Angel-A I like Luc Besson...but I don't, you know? Granted I haven't seen all his films. I hated but can't stop watching Fifth Element, I really liked The Professional (but never saw Leon), and I really hated The Messenger, I dug the Transporter but that's the end of the list there. I haven't seen La Femme Nikita or any of his early stuff. For some reason I still like him though, maybe it's cause even when he's bad you can still see his enthusiasm shine through.
But Angel-A knocked my socks off. I was totally head over heels in love with it until the very end, then the happy ending made me take a step back. I still love the movie, but I prefer to imagine a darker ending that never was.
I only know Jamel Debbouze from Amelie but that was enough to hook me when I first saw the preview. In the behind the scenes video you can see he was a bit nervous about carrying a whole film, and a little excited and anxious that he had to do drama as well, but from watching the movie you'd never know it. He owns the film.
Rie Rasmussen starts the movie sort of simplistic, like Lulu in Fifth Element, but her performance sort of snuck up on me cause about half way through I realized I was totally into her character arc. And of course she's visually iconic. With heels she's 6 feet tall and towers over the 5'5" Jamel. I love extreme height/size juxtapositions. The script also puts a few nice spins on the angel concept.
The movie itself is beautiful, all the locations and sets are meticulously framed so no shot is wasted. The black and white is a little funky compared to an old black and white film. I don't know if this is cause I'm used to seeing dirty grainy old movies or because it was shot in color and converted to black in white like most modern day B&W films (I don't know if it was, that's just my assumption). The movie also does a great job of staying simple. There's a few moments of digital trickery, and I actually think they could have done away with them entirely cause the film was so strong in it's editing. But they do a good job keeping the effects subtle so I won't give them too much shit for it.
Labels: comical, critiqua
