The Dreamlife of Angels (French: La Vie rêvée des anges) is a 1998 French drama film directed by Erick Zonca.
Story
The film is about two working class women, Isa and Marie, who live in a small French town near Lille. They both have been treated harshly by life and are living from day to day in short-time jobs, such as working in a textile factory or delivering leaflets in the streets. They live in an apartment that Marie is looking after because the owners had a car accident in which everyone died, except for Sandrine, a teenager, who is in a coma. Isa and Marie meet up with two bouncers, Fredo and Charly, whom they befriend. The men help them out and they have genuine fun together, although they are not much better off than the women.
Isa is the kind of girl who always lands on her two feet and has a casual attitude when it comes to life, while Marie finds it hard to express herself emotionally, and gets angry when she feels vulnerable. Marie cannot put up with the way she is tossed around by the world, and so, despite being in a relationship with Charly, she tries to escape through a local playboy, Chriss, a rich guy, who owns a bar and a night club (which the two bouncers work in), and regularly goes out with girls, seeing Marie as just another one of his random flings. Isa is tougher in that she can take the beating and stick with what is around her, and does not get carried away by the false possibility of a better life. Significantly, Isa refuses to sleep with her casual boyfriend Fredo, drawing her strength from within, while Marie is emotionally dependent on Chriss, who, it is clear, does not love her.
Isa finds the diary of Sandrine, and reads it to her during visits in the hospital. Meanwhile, Chriss decides to end his fling with Marie. Instead of breaking up with her in person, he asks Isa to tell her for him (she replies "it's not for me to tell her"), clearly afraid Marie would self destruct in front of him, then leaving Marie's later calls unreturned. After finally learning about Chriss' decision to end the relationship, Marie jumps out of a window. Meanwhile, Sandrine comes out of her coma, but interestingly, Isa, who has visited her so faithfully while she was in a coma, decides not to see her while she is awake. The film ends with Isa starting to work in a new factory.
General meaning
The film centers around the strength of personality, friendship and the world around us that we don't see due to the lack of ability to picture ourselves in other people's shoes.[citation needed] The director, Erick Zonca, helps viewers see the world through the eyes of these two young women, who have limited control over what is going to happen in their lives. Watching them it is clear that enormous strength is required to go through with it,[citation needed] and so it comes as no surprise that Marie eventually cannot take it. The film suggests the idea of the world's cyclical nature.[citation needed] Early in the film, viewers learn that Marie's father abused her mother. In the end, Marie becomes, like her mother, a victim.
The title is likely meant to refer to several things in the film.[citation needed] The first is the dreams of both Isa and Marie: at one point, Marie tells her during Isa's recalling of a past brief romance, "you're torturing yourself, and you dream a lot." Sandrine's coma is also evoked with this title, as her life's dreams are discussed by the two protagonists, and her coma and reawakening affects the lives of both of them significantly. More directly, in the final few minutes of the film, Isa writes a note to Marie as Marie sleeps, expressing the wish that Marie finds the life she dreams of. Shortly after writing this note, Isa sees to her regret that Marie never will, but in a short and moving epilogue, Isa's own strong inner life (invisible to casual observers but clearly carrying her through her difficult life), and the similar inner lives of several other anonymous women, are evoked one final time.
Comas in movies
Research by Dr. Eelco Wijdicks on the depiction of comas in movies was published in Neurology in May 2006. Dr. Wijdicks studied 30 films (made between 1970 and 2004) that portrayed actors in prolonged comas, and he concluded that only two films accurately depicted the state of a coma victim and the agony of waiting for a patient to awaken: Reversal of Fortune (1990), which was based on actual events, and The Dreamlife of Angels (1998). The remaining 28 were criticised for portraying miraculous awakenings with no lasting side effects; unrealistic depictions of treatments and equipment required; and comatose patients remaining tanned, muscular, and suspiciously well turned out.
Cast
- Élodie Bouchez: Isabelle 'Isa' Tostin
- Natacha Régnier: Marie Thomas
- Grégoire Colin: Chriss
- Patrick Mercado: Charly
- Jo Prestia: Fredo
- Francine Massenhave: hospital attendant
- Zivko Niklevski: Yugoslavian textile employer
- Murielle Colvez: shop foreperson
- Lyazid Ouelhadj: ticket salesman
- Frédérique Hazard: Marie's mother
- Jean-Michel Lemahieu: the intern
- Louise Motte: Sandrine
- Rosa Maria: the first nurse
- Corinne Masiero: the Hollywood girl
Awards
References
External links
