a review of 天使与我同桌

2022 Criterion Challenge Week 2/Category 49: Agnes Varda's Closet Picks This one took me a couple of attempts to watch and finish, because for whatever reason I couldn't get any narrative traction on the first third and had to set it aside for later. When I came back to it a few days later and rewatched, suddenly it came into a sharper focus for me. I split up my second attempt into three sittings over the course of a day, going with the episodic titling every 45-50 minutes or so, and this definitely helped me structure my thoughts about each section. I was very impressed with the sense of continuity across each chapter, to the extent that it wasn't always immediately obvious when they moved from the child/teen/adult performers playing Janet Frame at various ages. I don't know if Kerry Fox specifically worked with the two younger actors to incorporate aspects of their performances into hers or vice versa, or if that was all coordinated by Campion as director, but it created the illusion of a single individual in a way that was stronger than any other biopic I've ever seen.