Angel made of dust

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Movie
German title Angel made of dust
Original title Poussière d'ange
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1987
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Edouard Niermans
script Jacques Audiard ,
Alain Le Henry ,
Édouard Niermans
production Jacques-Eric Strauss
music Léon Senza ,
Vincent Marie Bouvot
camera Bernard Lutic
cut Yves Duchamps ,
Jacques Witta
occupation

In the French crime film Engel aus Staub ( Poussière d'ange ) from 1987 , the style of staging dominates over the plot. It is one of the few films that Edouard Niermans , who otherwise mostly works for television, was able to direct . The main role is played by Bernard Giraudeau , the female counterpart is played by Fanny Bastien . The story takes a police inspector through dark streets, crumbling mansions and wasteland. But it's not just a simple crime film, but also, as one reviewer noted, a "journey to the end of the night". Although the film trade press received the work well, it has remained little known.

Classification and origin

Niermans made his debut directing a full-length feature film in 1980 with Anthracite , which was favorably received by critics. He then spent a lot of time on a Simenon film that ultimately failed , took on some television works and spent the years traveling and making love. He was 43 years old with his second child, Engel aus Staub . He followed the order of the producer Jacques-Eric Strauss , who requested a police film . Together with Jacques Audiard and Alain Le Henry , Niermans developed the script over two years, during which he went through phases of discouragement. The main role was given to Bernard Giraudeau who, due to his previous roles, put himself in a drawer, felt trapped in a role type and was able to allude against his trademark. The cost of production was 15 million francs . Although the plot is set in a single city, the recordings were made over 45 days in three different cities, Paris , Lyon and Marseille . They started in October 1986 and ended just before Christmas. The date of the theatrical release on March 18, 1987 was set well in advance by the producer. Niermans immediately got to work, even over the holidays. He finished the film two weeks before the deadline, which limited press work and reduced the number of visitors during the first few days. In the Federal Republic of Germany, Engel aus Staub was shown at the Hof Film Festival in 1987 and opened in cinemas on January 7, 1988.

action

Starting position

Police Inspector Blount has just been left by his wife Martine, who has a new companion. Blount does his job, tired, drunk and in a shabby coat. While inspecting the store room of a supermarket, he discovers the young stray Violetta. The two are accidentally locked there overnight and talk about their lives. The next morning he drops her in front of a museum where she pretends to work as an archivist.

Further course and dissolution

Since Blount has no place to stay, he rents a room from the unemployed George-Albert, whom he gives his little daughter to look after. He also assigns him to shadow Martine during the day to find out who her new partner is. Blount and Violetta meet regularly and talk. You feel a bond without creating a love relationship. George-Albert tracks down Martine and her newcomer - hotelier Malevitch - and photographs her from the building opposite in the hotel room window. Blount storms to catch her, but finds Malevitch shot and Martine passed out. The murderer can be seen clearly in George Albert's photos. Blount determines that it is Gabriel, with a criminal record of minor offenses, who grew up in an orphanage. While visiting the home, Blount learns that Gabriel has a sister: Violetta. The fathers of the two orphans are unknown and their mother was a prostitute. She killed two crooks in 1972. One of them was Malevitch, the other was a man who was also recently murdered. They were released for lack of evidence; The investigation was directed by Floriment, who is Blounts' current superior. Inspector Blount realizes that the siblings want to kill one at a time those men they believe are guilty of their mother's death. Apart from Floriment, whom Violetta has been sending threats for two weeks, the lawyer Broz is still alive, who was then defending both crooks. Blount rushes to him, but comes too late: Violetta, disguised as a prostitute, got in to him and opened a window to Gabriel. The brother cuts Broz's throat, but Broz can fire another shot at him. Severely injured, Gabriel escapes and crashes into a police barrier in which his car goes up in flames. A journalist who was familiar with the case at the time reveals that Floriment is Violetta's father. In order not to endanger his career because of children with a prostitute, he had hired the two crooks to murder the mother. Blount leads him to a confession and has him arrested. He brings Violetta across the border to safety from criminal prosecution.

reception

Contemporary criticism

In the Cahiers du cinéma Alain Philippon wrote that a beautiful crime film would be a surprise. Angels of Dust prove that the genre doesn't necessarily have to be a shame. The two main actors are simply great; at Giraudeau a talent comes to the fore that has so far been covered up by mediocre films. He noted a “remarkable” light and stated that visually the film made no concessions to fashion. Niermans offer wholesome balance in a time in which the author cinema were pitted against the "other" cinema. Twice, with a crime case and with poetic fiction, it occupies the viewer without ever being lost; the script is neither incomprehensible nor too clear. It is neither better nor worse than other scripts. But besides the book, there is also the film itself, which unfolds, if not against the book, at least between its meshes and at its edges. The Positif critic Jean-Luc Pouillaude was convinced that Angels of Dust are aimed at a broad, large audience. In the gray landscape of the French crime film, Niermans draws an original portrait of a bull. In addition, Fanny Bastien is "extraordinary" and Jean-Pierre Sentier is "remarkable", and the film is not lacking in humor. The director has created an environment that is personal and entirely original. The film might displease some people because it does not make any concessions, but it amazes even more because it is unwilling to indulge in the discouragement of our time. Michel Braudeau from Le Monde found the film “fabulous” and the cast was first class: “Fanny Bastien is characterized by her stubborn, sensual appearance, her liveliness and freshness, a young Kaprisky .” Giraudeau is great and shows a kind of humor, like they were believed to have been lost since the death of Patrick Dewaere . The script is smart enough to be clear and not confuse us with false secrets. Without boasting of grandiose advertising aesthetics, and without offering us a cross-section of the Cahiers du cinéma , Positif or his souvenirs from the Cinémathèque , Niermans managed to achieve a perfect rhythm with ease and modesty, while his arrogant directing colleagues acted out.

Alf Mayer of epd film asked: "Are there any films that police work and show ambivalent fine characters, not authoritarian masks and schematic office actions (...)?" He counted angel dust of the rare examples among the police films "down mismanaged" the Renew genre in a successful way. The “fresh” film even takes something surprising from the old theme of the young femme fatale . The 1989 Fischer Film Almanach called the film a “small masterpiece” . “The rousing portrayal of Simon and Violetta, which evokes all the myths and clichés of the genre and triumphs over them in astonishing twists, shapes the story completely. Ideally cast down to the smallest supporting roles and played with great intensity, photographed and assembled with care and ingenuity, »Engel aus Staub« is a highlight in the traditional history of French crime films. "

Later reviews

Looking back on Bernard Giraudeau's acting career, Bostmambrun (2008) said that Engel aus Staub was little known, although he was one of the good ones among the French thrillers of the 1980s. In a chronicle of half a century of French cinema history, Prédal (2005) found that the psychological aspect of the film took on an original tone in a genre in which this was seldom the case. Laprévotte (2005) rated a story of French cinema even more advantageous, from which the previously flourishing crime film almost disappeared from the 1980s. Together with two other crime novels from the 1990s, he counted angels from dust to the “rare pearls” of the genre at that time.

Dramaturgy and style

The police inspector and the girl

The narrative follows Blount's investigation into a case he falls into by chance and gradually. The protagonists 'motives for their actions are usually only revealed in retrospect, so that the criminal case appears secondary to the characters' characters. In their confusion, they allow themselves to be guided by a course of action whose authors paid little attention to probabilities. Niermans emphasized that all films, and crime novels in particular, thrive on the speed, which does not allow the viewer to think directly about the consistency of all information. It is the characters that give substance to the story in Engel aus Staub , and the connections between Blount and Violetta. The inspector overcomes his grief and fondness for the bottle by throwing himself into research on Violetta. He is completely absorbed in a search for the truth that leads him through Violetta. The dominant question of the film is: Who is Violetta? A destructive or salvation angel? "The police riddle becomes a metaphysical secret."

Violetta appears like an angel, and more like a child than a woman. This trait is due to the fact that Violetta was much younger in the early script versions; an occupation with the then 15-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg was considered . When she is tense, Violetta holds a case in which she keeps little junk from her childhood to her neck, so she says, she can feel whether her heart is still beating. For these rituals and symbols of the character Violetta, but not her personality, Niermans was inspired by a woman who had been his partner for six years. However, in addition to angelic faithfulness, there is a cold, relentless determination. Although she and Blount basically have nothing in common at first, they recognize each other and understand each other spontaneously. A bond grows between them, both of whom have no home. Niermans violates the conventions of entertainment film in the design of their relationship. Because sexuality remains completely banned from their relationship; With the exception of a furtive kiss, there is no physical approach. During the development of the material, Niermans repeatedly had to fend off objections from colleagues involved, who called for a sexual relationship between Blount and Violetta. Niermans justified Violetta's character with her difficult relationship with sex: "She avenges her mother and her mother was a whore." She suffers from psychosis and is obsessed with the death of her mother. Her clothes, such as the three layers of skirts, deny her body. When asked about the contradiction that Violetta was registered as a prostitute towards the end, Niermans admitted that the story was not clear enough here. Actually, Violetta had only sneaked into the ring quickly to get to her next victim Broz. The last scene shows how taken Blount is with Violetta. Blount drives with his wife, who has returned to him, and his daughter towards his future place of work. To her question: “What are you thinking about?” He replies with a slightly distant look: “To you, my love!” And holds Violetta's case to his neck.

Each of the protagonists in the story is hiding a crack in their soul. Violetta's brother Gabriel is her other self and her executive arm. Named the same as the Archangel Gabriel , he devotedly carries out her work of destruction and purification until his own apocalyptic death. Even with regard to the character of the superior Floriment, Niermans stated that he wanted to give him a vulnerability that aroused the need to forgive him.

Personal style

Niermans revealed that he would like to see it one day he was classified as an author , as the decisive designer of his cinematic works. He was faced with the contradiction of wanting to get funding for a film and at the same time remain an author. He tried “to act as an author within a film that is intended to be open to the audience.” Regarding his second feature film, he said: “I don't see Engel aus Staub as an author's film. It contains very personal things, but also things that are conditioned by the assignment. "

The auteuristic part is more in the staging than in the script. Style takes on greater weight than crime; less than a simple police film, it is “a journey to the end of the night.” Niermans turns against realism and against probability and gives preference to poetry. "We find ourselves - and we lose ourselves - in a Borgesian labyrinth, in a landscape in which this world is another world." According to Alion (1987), Niermans is not far from creating a kind of poetic realism : How formerly with Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert , the protagonists are marked by fate, their past rises again from abysses. No wound can ever heal, they are moving through a hell on earth, sadness reigns everywhere. The film let the audience waver between dream and delusion, be an outflow of the contemporary world like a realm of the imaginary. In his own words, Niermans wanted to give the film a "sleepwalking, a little dreamy" quality.

Almost monochromatic wide-angle optics

The set of the film creates an atmospheric environment that partly describes the character of the protagonist. Niermans wanted to show the places from the subjective point of view of the protagonist, and to descend into increasingly hallucinated places. The purpose of shooting in three cities was to invent a new city made up of elements from other locations. Another new creation was the police station, which was recreated in a warehouse. Visually, the director sought a middle position between realism on the one hand and a comic-like aesthetic in the manner of Jean-Jacques Brilleix ( Diva , 1981) and Luc Besson ( Subway , 1985) on the other. Actually, he would have preferred a black and white film. As an approximation, he banned bright colors and chose gray and beige-brown as the predominant hues. The image has an aspect ratio of 1.37: 1 to better illustrate the relationship between the characters and the space around them. Almost the entire film is photographed with the short focal length of 24 mm because the director wanted to create a great depth of field and a wide perspective and "this moving force, brought about by short focal lengths when you are close to the actors."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Édouard Niermans in conversation with the Cahiers du cinéma , April 1987: La liberté à l'envers , p. 8, and in conversation with Positif , May 1987: On entend la mer mais on ne la voit jamais , p. 46 and 49
  2. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 10 left column, and in Positif , p. 47 left
  3. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 41; Yves Alion: Poussière d'ange . In: La revue du cinéma , No. 427, May 1987, p. 28
  4. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , pp. 44–46
  5. ^ Alain Philippon: Sans feu ni lieu . In: Cahiers du cinéma , April 1987, pp. 5-7
  6. ↑ Jean-Luc Pouillaude: C'est dur d'être un héros . In: Positif , No. 315, May 1987, pp. 41-43
  7. ↑ Michel Braudeau: Un film français, enfin . In: Le Monde , March 21, 1987, p. 22
  8. ↑ Alf Mayer: Angel made of dust . In: epd Film , No. 1/1988, p. 35
  9. ^ Fischer Film Almanach 1989. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-596-24486-2 , p. 106
  10. ↑ a b Adrien Bostmambrun: Truands, brutes at autres "geules" du cinéma français des années 80 . Aléas, Lyon 2008, ISBN 978-2-84301-231-0 , pp. 127-129
  11. ↑ René Prédal: 50 ans de cinéma français (1945–1995). Armand Colin, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-200-34442-2 , p. 635
  12. ↑ Gilles Laprévotte: Les années d'aujourd'hui (1980-2000). In: Claude Beylie (ed.): Une histoire du cinéma français. Larousse, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-03-575300-7 , p. 297
  13. ^ Yves Alion: Poussière d'ange . In: La revue du cinéma , No. 427, May 1987, pp. 28-29
  14. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , pp. 47–48
  15. ↑ Philippon 1987, p. 6
  16. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 41
  17. ↑ Philippon 1987, p. 6, and Pouillaude 1987, p. 42
  18. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 47 right
  19. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 8 right column, and in Positif , p. 46 left column and p. 47 right column
  20. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 42
  21. ↑ Philippon 1987, p. 6, and Pouillaude 1987, p. 41
  22. ↑ Philippon 1987, p. 6
  23. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 10 left column, and in Positif , p. 47 right column
  24. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , pp. 46–48
  25. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 43
  26. ↑ Alion 1987, p. 28
  27. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 43
  28. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 47 right column
  29. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 48
  30. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 8 middle column
  31. ^ Alain Philippon: La liberté à l'envers . In: Cahiers du cinéma , April 1987, p. 8 right column
  32. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 41 (direct quote) and 43
  33. ↑ Philippon 1987, p. 6
  34. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 43
  35. ↑ Alion 1987, p. 28
  36. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 9; see also Niermans in Positif , p. 45 left column
  37. ↑ Pouillaude 1987, p. 43
  38. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 45
  39. ↑ a b Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 9, and in Positif , p. 45 right column
  40. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 10 middle column
  41. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 47 left column
  42. ↑ Édouard Niermans in Positif , p. 44 right column
  43. ↑ Édouard Niermans in the Cahiers du cinéma , p. 10 middle column, and in Positif , p. 45 left column
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 23, 2010 .