Who Came Before Gaspar Noé? Ten Auteur-Porn Milestones of the 21st Century
The Exterminating Angels (2006)
As does Love, Jean-Claude Brisseau’s Les Anges Exterminateurs focuses on a filmmaker, but this higher-minded auto-critique drew its inspiration from some heavy real-life accusations: Three women who auditioned for Brisseau’s 2002 toast-of-Cannes Secret Things claimed he forced them to masturbate on camera; the director, 60 at the time, was eventually found guilty of sexual harassment. In Angels, Frédéric van den Driessche stars as François, who’s embarking on a narrative film about female sexual pleasure, and so asks that his actresses touch each other where it counts. All the while François broods over the perils of this process.