Saint Ange

For the life of me, I cannot understand the fierce and almost resentful nature of many of the opinions given here. I was fully prepared to see another one of those over-blown affairs that put style over substance and usually bore me to bits after 15 minutes or so of their „Amélie"-type smugness and undeserved self-confidence. In fact. SAINT ANGE is a very careful, very sensitive story of a young woman who struggles with her feelings about her impending motherhood. The ending made perfect sense to me, whether read as a ghost story of sorts or a paranoid fantasy. The actresses are uniformly excellent, particularly Virginie Ledoyen and Lou Doillon, as is Catriona MacColl, who you might still remember from those colorful Fulci extravaganzas from the early eighties. The splendid photography makes good use of the grey and cold blue colours of the orphanage, which is embedded in green and brown tones – Mother Nature. The fantasy ending also introduces a clinical white for good measure. In view of the many cinematic exercises of today that talk their subtexts to death, SAINT ANGE uses a formal elegance that is breath-taking. Actually, I didn't find one single frame that was superfluous. In a way, the film also shares several themes with Laugier's well-received and harrowing MARTYRS, as it is basically another – albeit more tender – tale of a bruised young woman under dire circumstances. The ending of MARTYRS can also be read as a paranoid fantasy, with traces of hope hidden in a complex framework of depressing human depravity. No, I liked SAINT ANGE a lot. And, by the way, Joe Lo Duca – who started with Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD – delivered a haunting and memorable music score. An excellent movie.

From the tone of these comments you would think this was the worst film ever made (and a few comments say that literally). It wasn't as good as "The Others" and such, but the worst movie ever? Please. It was well shot and the minimalist production design was a welcome break from hyper-stylized films like "Silent Hill". The story did take a long time to develop, but the tension built nicely and it had an Argento feel to me. Not every movie has to be "Transformers", moving at Mach 10 from the first frame. Maybe the more subtle storytelling nature was why everyone reacted so poorly. It certainly didn't beat you over the head with plot points, and did feel like a key scene or two was left out of the final cut (setting up the kittens for example) but overall was a nice, spooky little film. Everyone's opinion is valid if course, and it's nowhere near my favorite film, but I had to defend it for some reason. Maybe it's because there are so many TRULY bad films out there, and I want people to save their venom for the movies that deserve it.

I cant believe some of the comments i've read on here about this film! It was very slow paced and wasn't very scary or disturbing, but the cinematography was beautiful, as were the sets and the music, although the music didn't go with some scenes and took away the films eerie atmosphere. If you enjoy supernatural films such as "The others" then this may not be as good but is still worth watching because it is slow and creepy and it does build up to some spooky scenes. The acting was OK, nothing special, but watchable. I would give this film a chance, i found other peoples bad comments very misleading, they may not have enjoyed the film, but, although not brilliant, is not as bad as they make it out to be.

OK, so the film isn't great, but it surely ain't awful either. It is reminiscent of other films, The Innocents and The Others to name but two, but there's no harm in that. There's very few films today that could be called truly original these days. Originality doesn't matter, it's the telling of the story that matters, and like the aforementioned, this film moves at a slow pace, admittedly too slow at times but it does deliver a certain creepiness and suspense. Where this film falls down for some (taking into consideration the comments already left) is that it doesn't end with an explanation. But so what? Like The Innocents you are left to come up with your own conclusions and I for one like it when the facts aren't spelled out to me in cinematic semaphore. Ambiguity is all but lost under the onslaught of mind-numbing American releases that offer nothing but 90 minutes of entertainment and then nothing. Saint Ange is a film you can chew on for days afterwards. It's very well shot, capably acted and offers a few shivers along the way. Not nearly as bad as people would have you believe.

Saint Ange starts pretty amazing and sets you in the movie's gloomy mood immediately but the truth is that the movie is bad. The settings for the movie are indeed very good and with a solid storyline and correct flow the movie would have been a great one. The shots, colors, lighting and close ups are truly amazing but it's a shame that the movie starts to bore you after halfway, also there are lots of things that don't really make sense leaving you confused and in the end it's somewhat unbearable so you pray for it to end finally. My 3 rating is only because the film's photography is truly brilliant otherwise i would have sticked to 1.