# Vie rêvée des anges, La (1998)

### reviewed by
Greg King

    THE DREAM LIFE OF ANGELS (M).
    (Mercure Distribution/Palace)
    Director: Erick Zonca
    Stars: Elodie Bouchez, Natacha Regnier, Gregoire Colin
    Running time: 113 minutes
    (French, with English subtitles).

First time director Erick Zonca's The Dream Life Of Angels (La Vie Revee Des Anges) is a grim, warts and all study of female friendship. But, unlike most formula driven Hollywood efforts, there are no terminal diseases or unrealistic, melodramatic plot devices to test the limits of friendship. Rather, Zonca opts for an intense level of gritty realism that will satisfy many in the audience who are looking for something a little different. The film explores realistic and credible characters, emotions and conventional situations with an honesty that is rare in today's cinema.

Twenty year old Isa (Elodie Bouchez, from Andre Techine's Wild Reeds, etc) is a drifter, who lives a hand to mouth existence as she travels across France. When she arrives in Lille, an industrial town in northern France, she lands a temporary job in a sewing factory. She is ill-equipped to handle the job and after a couple of days is fired. But at the factory she strikes up a friendship with fellow seamstress Marie (Natacha Regnier), a taciturn and introverted loner with a rebellious streak. Isa moves into Marie's flat.

It turns out that Marie is merely minding the flat for a woman who was recently hospitalised following a car crash. Isa and Marie go out a lot, party hard and drink a lot. The two eventually develop a friendship with a couple of bikies, who also work as bouncers at a local night club. But when Marie begins a torrid affair with the handsome but shallow night club owner Chriss (Gregoire Colin), the two friends begin to drift apart. Isa can see that Chriss is merely using Marie, but her friend is reluctant to accept the fact.

Meanwhile Isa herself becomes obsessed with the comatose daughter of the flat's owner. She visits the girl in the hospital and reads to her from her diary, hoping to make some sort of connection. Their various obsessions begin to drive the two women apart. What is also interesting is how the increasingly strained relationship also changes their character. We watch how Isa grows in confidence, strength and assurance while the fragile Marie falls apart. The two girls chain smoke their way through the film with such passion that one can almost smell the cigarette smoke wafting through the cinema.

This sombre character driven piece is driven by the sensational pair of emotionally draining and insightful performances from Bouchez and Regnier. The two actresses have jointly shared a number of international best actress prizes for their performances here, but it is Bouchez who beautifully carries off the more demanding and showy part. Zonca apparently had the two actresses share a flat during the making of the film to give an air of realism to their relationship, and it shows in the increasing air of tension and acrimony that develops as the film unfolds.

The pace is slow, and Dream Life Of Angels seems to go for much longer than its 113 minutes running time would suggest. This is, at times, a fairly bleak and down beat film that probes deeply into the makeup of its two central characters. The early portions are tempered with some welcome doses of humour, but the tone slowly changes as the film continues. There is little let up from its claustrophobic and depressing atmosphere in the second half.

    **
    greg king
    http://www.netau.com.au/gregking

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews