The Exterminating Angels (2006)

The Exterminating Angels is the kind of film that feels less like a story you “follow” and more like a spell you fall under: Jean-Claude Brisseau stages desire, power, and imagination with a painter’s control and a hypnotic calm that makes even the quiet moments thrum with danger. What begins as a filmmaker’s artistic inquiry into female pleasure gradually takes on an uncanny, dreamlike charge—watched over by mysterious apparitions and haunted by a sense that the erotic is never just physical, but symbolic, spiritual, and volatile. Brisseau’s audacity is the point: he’s not chasing titillation so much as probing the costs of obsession and the illusion that you can safely “study” transgression without it studying you back. It’s definitely not for everyone—its explicitness and provocations can feel confrontational—but if you’re open to challenging, visually precise cinema that invites debate long after the credits, it’s hard to shake.

The Exterminating Angels is clearly trying to probe the ethics and psychology of desire, creative control, and the blurry line between “research” and exploitation, with a dash of surreal, ghostly commentary. The problem is it often feels more impressed with its own transgression than genuinely insightful, leaning on lengthy, explanatory scenes that can come off academic and self-indulgent rather than revelatory. If you’re hoping for a nuanced, character-first drama about female pleasure, you may find the perspective too controlled by the filmmaker figure and the provocation too thinly justified. That said, if you can tolerate (or are specifically seeking) explicit material framed as an art-house experiment, there’s undeniable intensity and a committed cast, even when the film mistakes discomfort for depth.