ANGELA

US, 2000, 28 minutes, Colour.
Victor Argo, Austin Pendleton, Valerie Geffner.
Directed by Amos Kollek.

Angela is a 28 minute feature in the German series Erotic Tales (with others by such directors as Paul Cox, Bob Rafaelson). Kollek had made such films as Goodbye New York and High Stakes in the '80s. In the '90s he made a number of portraits of women in New York City: Sue, Fiona. He also made Fast Food, Fast Women, which was in competition in Cannes 2000 (winning an OCIC award). Angela seems to be a preparation for his 2001 film, Queenie in Love. It has the same cast. Victor Argo is a 70 year old man, living alone, wondering about ageing, wanting one last fling. Valerie Geffner is a mysterious woman in the city with erotic overtones on the phone, with some sado masochistic behaviour in the room opposite Bob. Austin Pendleton is the psychiatrist. Argo and Pendleton played very similar roles in Queenie in Love. Valerie Geffner was Queenie and some of the incidents in Angela are very similar to those in Queenie in Love.

1. New York settings, apartments, psychiatrists, the streets and the parks? Musical score?

2. The focus on Angela, the focus on Bob? Their needs, interactions?

3. Bob, his age, talking to the psychiatrist every week, living alone, no indications of his past? His reading Marquez? The phone call from Angela and its erotic overtones? His being intrigued, his hanging up? Seeing her with the sado masochistic behaviour? Seeing her in the park? Confronting her? Her going to his house? Their sexual encounter? Singing the song at the end? His transformation exercise, jogging, dyeing his hair? The film as the longings for a 70 year old man?

4. Angela as mysterious, sexpot, an object of men's desire? On the phone, in the park, in the room? Her joke with Bob, pretending to be male? The comment on New York City?

5. Bob's neighbour and his dead dog, his poodle? The friend at the newspaper stand? At the bar? The New York people the women jogging, the young women mocking Bob as "Pops"?

6. The psychiatrist, his interest in Bob, the friendly interaction between them, his provoking Bob, commenting on his health and sex drive?

7. A glimpse of lonely people in New York and the need to relate to one another?