Touched by an Angel | The Nation   Touched by an Angel    •
Share   • Decrease text size Increase text size  It's
characteristic of Erick Zonca's extraordinary first feature, The
Dreamlife of Angels, that we never learn how Isa got that scar
across her right eyebrow. It's just there: a fragment of
personal history, borne in the flesh by someone who doesn't
think much about her past.  About the Author  Stuart Klawans
Also by the Author    Barely into her 20s, Isa clomps onto the
screen sporting a brush haircut that was surely self-
administered and wearing the motley layers of a wanderer. Her
clothes, like her eyebrow, must have a history (or histories--
these wrappings may have belonged to three or four different
people before Isa put them on), but she carries her outfit
comfortably, as if she weren't living in it as a transient.  We
soon learn that Isa has traveled to the northeast of France in
much the same spirit. She's arrived expecting to stay with a
friend. But she can't have kept in touch with him; he's