Angèle

Angèle comes from a Belgian family of musicians; her father is a singer, her mother a dancer and her brother a rapper. While she is playing piano in a bar the videos she puts online spread. A first album comes out and everything accelerates. The documentary is shot inside that acceleration. The tour bus, rehearsals, a hotel room, backstage. Angèle sometimes holds the camera herself. She describes what being known means; the comments online, the loss of privacy and being watched constantly. During the lockdown the concerts stop and the narrative goes quiet. Brice VDH directs. Angèle is at the centre of it. It is a Belgian and French production. The documentary went out on Netflix. The narrative does not proceed chronologically; the recordings are used like a diary. The matter it treats is fame arriving young; the film does not build it as a success story. Angèle talks about her sexuality and describes making it public. The documentary shows the family relations too; working with her brother and the strain between them are inside it. Some of the material was shot on a phone and the image quality is deliberately uneven. Its limit is distance; the documentary is under the control of its subject and builds no critical view. Who it is for: viewers who like documentaries about musicians and French language pop. Who it is not for: it is single voiced, the subject narrow, and the ending gives no closure.