The Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateurs)

I did not know what I was going to see from the description of the French film The Exterminating Angels, based on a true story, on Amazon Prime. I was surprised to see a movie that some would call soft porn because many such movies would not be shown in the Puritanical USA. After seeing this movie I am still clueless as to why this movie was given the name The Exterminating Angels. So what is the storyline?

The Exterminating Angels follows a middle-aged filmmaker, Francois (Frédéric van den Driessche), who auditions a few young women for a movie that explores female masturbation. During the interview he invites them to pleasure themselves in front of him. He observes them first individually, then in pairs, and eventually three entwined together. Among his earnest goals is to capture "the grace of the pleasure on their faces and bodies." He does not participate other than to observe.

After rejections from several nonplussed actors, and one auditionee who eventually accuses him of traumatizing her, he ends up doing innumerable test runs with the volatile Charlotte (Maroussia Dubreuil) and the more docile Julie (Lise Bellynck). A waitress, Stéphanie (Marie Allan), signs up after witnessing the other women pleasuring each other on a table in one of the more public experiments.

What makes this movie puzzling is its mystical aspects--a strange nocturnal visit from his dead grandmother, strange radio messages floating around the ether, and two invisible fallen angels who have a hand in directing events, pushing in the director’s direction evildoing women who are out to destroy him.

If you are openminded, and enjoy a sexy, thinking-person film, then I recommend this movie.