Les anges exterminateurs 2006

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: The content may be dubious, but the execution is hypnotic. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The director can't get past his notion of himself as a fearlessly transgressive artist-hero, a martyr to the limitations of male gaze. With all those lovely naked women helping him act out his own Promethean fall, it's less autocritique than autoeroticism Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Critics I admire have assured me that many of Brisseau's earlier films are less silly, more interesting, and even commendable. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Exterminating Angels is undeniably arousing. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Has heat but little light; it speaks of pleasure while treating it as a dirty word. The cast huffs and puffs but the exercise, sadly, remains academic. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: [Director] Brisseau calculatedly offsets the silliness of the surreal elements and the earnestness applied to the sex by savoring the overall absurdity. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: Gorgeous French silliness, yes, featuring stunning women having languorous, artful sex with each other. What was I saying? Oh yes, the silliness. Artful, gorgeous, sexy, sure, but ridiculous nonetheless. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie, for all its huffing and puffing, explores very little, even if some of it is sexy in a Howard Stern-meets-9 1/2 Weeks way. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Beneath its rueful humor, surrealistic conceits and alluring interludes, Exterminating Angels emerges as a cautionary examination of erotica's pleasures and perils. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: This is the stuff of male fantasy. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Exterminating Angels is beautifully lensed and acted, but it lacks substance. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Exterminating Angels is a luminous picture, beautifully made, loaded with symbolism and mystical-religious imagery, about an artist's self-destructive quest for an unreachable grail. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Endless auditions get the annoying Francois nowhere closer to grasping what turns women on. Read more

Lisa Nesselson, Variety: Maestro of pulse-quickening simulated sex Jean-Claude Brisseau offers a frequently funny, authentically arousing and seemingly autobiographical tale. Read more

Rob Nelson, Village Voice: Exterminating Angels is one audaciously, endearingly ludicrous movie. Read more