Erick Zonca  

France 
 

It also happens to be the feature film debut of his producer, Francois Marquis, who, over the past seven years, has collaborated with Zonca on all three of his previous short films: Rives (1992), Eternelles (1994), and Seule (1996). 

La vie revee des anges pairs two young talents, already-accomplished Elodie Bouchez and bright newcomer Natacha Regnier, as the 'angels' who don't quite traverse the real world in the same manner as the rest of us. 

Isa (Elodie Bouchez), 20, wanders through France with only a rucksack on her back. Unperturbed whatever hardships may come her way, she picks up part-time jobs to keep her going and never wishes to stay anywhere any longer than necessary – innocent and optimistic by nature, she is quite comfortable with her destiny. Stopping off in Lille in the north of France, she meets Marie (Natacha Regnier), another 20-year-old loner, but a different type: hyper-sensitive and in complete rebellion with her immediate surroundings, Marie is as unsociable as Isa is outgoing. That the two should make a pair at all is half of what the film is about. Their encounters with others is the other half.  

Cineastes may recognise similarities with other films by prominent directors touching on the plight of an innocent girl (or girls) on the road – Agnes Varda's Vagabonde (France), Alain Tanner's Mirador (Switzerland), and Michael Winterbottom's Butterfly Kiss (UK), to name just a few. But the similarity with La vie reveedes anges stops there. Erick Zonca pins his story to a real person. "The origin of the film was my meeting with a girl who was the inspiration for the character of Isa. I was casting my second short film, Eternelles, and one of the candidates was a young girl with a rucksack. She showed me a strange sort of book she'd put together which was in fact her diary. She gave out an impression of serenity, grace, and absolute confidence in life. She told me how she wandered from place to place, living from day to day... I kept in contact with her and followed her journeys." 

Those who remember Elodie Bouchez in Andre Techine's Wild Reeds (1993), for which she was awarded a Cesar for most promising young actress, and in Yolande Zauberman's Clubbed to Death (1995), in which she played a spaced-out girl in a techno-disco, now find her in a role that demands full commitment: "Since Isa never looks at herself in the film, I didn't want her to look at herself – so for weeks throughout the shoot I didn't look at myself a single time. It gave me an incredible sensation of freedom and total absence of modesty. That's how I managed to get it all across... including the dangerous moments." 

Camerawoman Agnes Godart collaborated closely with Erick Zonca on a shoot that was easily the equivalent of a three-hour film, the extra footage thus allowing him more leeway on the editing table. There's a lot of hand-held camera and scenes shot in cramped interior settings. The decision to shoot in Super-16 (instead of 35mm) evolved out of tests: the desire to 'soften' the picture with saturated colours and the need to sketch visually the 'dreamlife' of angels. 
Ron Holloway