Review of Dream Life of Angels, The

Introduction

The film opens on Isa (Élodie Bouchez) who is cutting pictures out of magazines and glueing them to pieces of card to sell on the street using any sales technique, with no respect for the truth. She tries to sell one of her cards to a man in a café who, instead of buying one, gives her a sewing job in a clothes factory. She befriends a co-worker, Marie (Natacha Régnier), who invites Isa, who has nowhere to live, to stay with her in an apartment that Marie is house-sitting for a mother and daughter who are both in comas. Isa is obviously a young woman with no plans and survives on her wits and eternal optimism, although a prominent scar on her eyebrow show that things haven`t always gone her way. Marie, on the other hand, is almost permanently downbeat and selfish, yet something about Isa has appealed to her, as Marie is not the kind of person to offer a stranger a bed for the night.

As Isa was fired from the factory and Marie chose her new found friend over the job she hated and neither went back - if they weren`t living in a free apartment, they`d be homeless. They spend their time trying to chat up men in shopping malls, ostensibly for fun, although the prospect of a meal and sex is not something they`d pass up. Attempting to blag their way into a nightclub, they meet leather-clad bouncers Fredo (Jo Prestia) and Charly (Patrick Mercado), with whom they form loose relationships. Marie has a casual relationship with Charly but Isa isn`t interested in any sort of commitment with Fredo. Marie also begins seeing Chriss (Grégoire Colin), a womaniser and the owner of a string of clubs, including the one where Fredo and Charly occasionally work. Marie assumes the optimistic mantle and convinces herself that her relationship with Chriss will become something serious, picking her as `the one` and hoping that his wealth will enable her to escape her current situation. She even continues to hope this when Isa points out that he is sleeping around - taking her frustration out on Isa rather than Chriss.

Meanwhile, Isa is pursuing jobs that Marie has no interest in, but dragging her along anyway and visiting the comatose daughter whose apartment she is living in.

Video

The anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer is unspectacular, with some softness and slight grain, but nothing to get too upset or excited about.

Set in Lille, a predominantly industrial and grey city, there is no attempt by cinematographer Agnès Godard to brighten the surroundings or hide the bleakness of the place, which suits the general mood perfectly.

Audio

The stereo soundtrack is fine for this film which has no need for surrounds. The subtitles are a bit of a let down, although they are clear, they are occasionally badly written or misspelt:
"How do reckon we get in?"
"Grand Brassserie"
"It`s both us or neither of us"

It`s a shame that no proofreading of subtitles exists or, if it does, wasn`t used as the mistakes jar.

Features

None.

Conclusion

The winner of several César`s, `The Dream Life of Angels` was critically lauded on the continent and Élodie Bouchez and Natacha Régnier shared the Best Actress award at Cannes, where the film was nominated for the Palme d`Or. I had no idea what to expect from this, and only found out about its critical success, which it fully deserves, whilst writing this review.

Erick Zonca has a great eye and some of the shots are terrific; as a co-writer, he also creates fully rounded and believable characters with whom to frame the film around: Isa and Marie are three dimensional and you are able to sympathise with them and their decisions.

`The Dream Life of Angels` is arguably a film to be appreciated rather than enjoyed, given the austere and downbeat story: no-one has a great time, there are few moments of levity, and as seen through the two lead characters` eyes, life is hard. A film for connoisseurs, those who appreciate a beautifully directed and finely crafted film.