L'ange noir

Stéphane kills a notorious gangster, well known to the police. The quest for the crime leads to a crucial, cruel and dramatic intensity. With Michel Piccoli and Sylvie Vartan.

Stéphane Feuvrier has killed a man in her luxury apartment near Bordeaux. The victim is none other than Wadek Aslanian: a notorious gangster, well known to the police. He is a Robin Hood who shares part of his ill-gotten gains among the poor. Stéphane has met him while visiting prisoners. Now she claims he wanted to rape her. Magistrate Georges Feuvrier, the husband of Stéphane, entrusts her defense to a friend, Paul Delorme. He soon starts getting anonymous letters with the names of people he has to interrogate to get to the truth. The confused Paul, who has been in love with Stéphane for years, slowly starts to discover the truth about this mysterious woman. A yearning for the impossible is often an element in the films of Brisseau. In this case, it is about the desire to fathom the female experience of pleasure. Paul Delorme’s quest, a familiar form in modern cinema, builds in L’ange noir to a vital, cruel and and dramatic intensity. By deliberately playing with the clichés of crime melodramas and by adding music that expresses empathy, the film is made daring while also acquiring a dark sheen. –IFFR