L'empreinte de l'ange

This film has been released in Britain under the title ANGEL OF MINE, although the American title is a direct translation of its original French title which is L'EMPREINTE DE LA ANGE. The 'angel' referred to is a little girl named Lola. This is a very, very strange story, and an extremely harrowing one. The two lead actresses, Catherine Frot and Sandrine Bonnaire, take emotions to the limit and then beyond. What pros they are! Frot has made 88 films and Bonnaire has made 51, including the amazing VAGABOND (1985) of Agnès Varda, where she showed at an early age just how far she could go in playing someone over the edge of human desperation. In this film, the two women are driven far, far over that edge. The scene where they physically fight and try to tear each other apart like demented harpies is deeply shocking, as women rarely are driven to such extremes of clawing, smashing, desperate combat. The director and co-writer of this film is Safy Debbou. Unfortunately, this very shy creature, which we may call The Safy, must be considered of indeterminate sex, as there is no hint as to whether it is male or female, due to the lack of information about it on IMDb. I am inclined to suspect that it may be female, but zoological confirmation of the sex of The Safy is so far lacking. Another thing which is lacking on IMDb is the listing of the title ANGEL OF MINE, so that British cinema-lovers looking up this film will not be able to find it listed at all. I certainly hope that deficiency may be remedied. Is this a conspiracy to keep everyone in the dark? Only joking. But there ought to be a warning on the front of the DVD: 'Unsuitable viewing for the emotionally vulnerable.' There is no blood, no gore, no one gets killed, we don't have to look at corpses and wounds, but we do have something which is almost worse: raw emotional frenzy. There is little one dare say about the film's plot without revealing too much. Catherine Frot had a daughter who died in a hospital fire, and she has been distraught and depressed for years because of this. It has led to the breakup of her marriage, despite the fact that she still has a son. Through the young son, she meets a friend of the son's friend, and thus encounters Sandrine Bonnaire and her daughter Lola. Frot becomes a stalker of the daughter, with whom she is obsessed. I should stress that this film claims to be 'based on true events'. The real story becomes something other than what one expects. After all, there have been far too many films about stalkers. This is not really a stalker film at all, it just seems that way in the beginning. Watch, but beware.

I often tell people that if they want to see a film – avoid the trailer. In the case of 'Mark of an Angel' I'd tell them to avoid the poster. While so many trailers these days seem to be potted synopses of the whole film ('Public Enemies' being a massive case in point) the tag-line of this film may give a way a crucial plot element of the story. Which would be a pity as this is a really first-class film. Class being the operative word given the acting talent on show here.

Sandrine Bonnaire can do no wrong (unless it's required of her) and Catherine Frot has long since masked the art of barely suppressed tension and panic. Here she really brings it to the fore as she stars as Elsa, a woman with a long history of depression who develops a fascination with a seven year old girl she sees at a birthday party when she comes to collect her son. Determined to find out more about the girl she uses her son as a way in to the family ensuring that he befriends the girl's brother so that she can then befriend the girl's mother Claire (Bonnaire). She uses her son more and more in her pursuit of this obsession telling her employees that he is seriously ill so that she can run off and resume her stalking. She tells her parents she is dating so that they will baby-sit and she can do the same thing. At first Claire doesn't suspect anything but gradually notices that Elsa is paying too much attention to Lola – the girl in question. Meanwhile we are starting to realise why. Throughout the film you are not so much on the edge of your seat as pressed back into it. The tension as you wait desperately for Elsa to be found out is excruciating and when one particularly dramatic scene ends with what would normally be seen as the cop-out of Elsa suddenly waking up – you are just hugely relieved – they haven't caught her yet. And that's the thing – your sympathy is completely with Elsa, you cringe as she keeps accidentally turning up at every event involving Lola and her mother and you shudder as you watch this woman falling slowly apart. Frot really lays it on in this but Sandrine Bonnaire certainly holds her own when it comes her turn to convey the creeping (and increasing ) fear of this woman that is taking hold of her. There is one scene which is pure Hitchcock and clearly meant to be. Lola is performing in a ballet watched by her parents and brother in the audience. Claire notices her looking offstage to the wings a lot and when she turns herself she catches a glimpse of someone there. Is it Elsa? She can't be sure and she keeps straining between dancers to see but only gets the briefest of fleeting glances. It's an incredibly tense sequence of "Is it her?"/ "Is it not her?" made all the more so by the fact that we know – it is. Add to that the fact that the ballet the girls are dancing to is a musical simulation of a clock – ("Tick Tock" "Tick Tock") - and you're now pressed back into the seat behind you. This really is great stuff.

a girl. two women. a past episode. a recollection. and the truth. nothing else. a sensitive story about feelings, past and accident. and a beautiful cast.nothing else. the tale is not new. but it is delicate and profound. the steps of search of truth is a precise work. and the final answer is like rain drops - clear, honest, dramatic. so, out of performance is the science to present a form of pain with many faces. and the beauty of a verdict. the fall of masks. the power of words. the force of gestures. the life as hided flower of choices and needs. a film like a moral lesson or like morning wind. because its object is silence as cloth of cry.or only walk of a mother and her daughter.

It's rare that you go into a movie aware of a sort-of familiar story (and this one, though true, is up with the Top 10 Lifetime plots), and a sort-of familiar genre and come out of the theater dazed at the uniquely transfixing experience you just had. Angel of Mine is one of those experiences.

I really admired the way this film takes you down certain familiar paths (is it going to be a tearjerker like "The Notebook", a psycho-stalker like "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle") and then detours you completely. No, Angel of Mine is not in the same kind of "anything for a cheap rise" league.

Catherine Frot and Sandrine Bonnair are always stunning but they work a kind of intuitive magic here. Indeed, the most electrifying moments between the two occur when they're being silent together.

The photography is elegiac, the score poignant, the direction lucid and transparent.

Get it out on Region 1 DVD folks....more people need to see this!