Written and directed by leading actress Noémie Merlant, co-written by Pauline Munier and Céline Sciamma, three women in a Marseille apartment gets stuck in a heat wave. They find themselves trapped in a terrifying affair and longing for freedom. Also starring: Souheila Yacoub, Sanda Codreanu, Lucas Bravo, Nadège Beausson-Diagne, Christophe Montenez, Nasir Bachouche and François Cottrelle.
First off, Noémie Merlant is an absolute joy to watch at work, no matter the role, she creates enthralling characters with distinctive and fascinating personalities. So, to already have that level of talent as an actress then to have it behind the camera as well is ridiculous and yet, here we are because The Balconettes is exceptional. Her opening sequence is like a dark murder mystery musical, the vivacity is infectious, the camera movement and sets are perfect. It’s a sensational first impression and it genuinely never loses that quality all throughout the film.
That is a particularly difficult thing to achieve but Merlant’s style with The Balconettes is superb, it’s aesthetically incredible, in no small part due to the stunning cinematography from Evgenia Alexandrova, while creating a pointed atmosphere. There are so many different influences at work here, it’s like Almodóvar and Hitchcock had a baby who grew up with Ducournau and became a feminist with a dark sense of humour. Which sounds like a lot, but all of those things work ridiculously well together. Especially as Merlant loves to play around with the angles, there’s something surreal about the framing, everything is a little off kilter in the best way.
Everything has a slightly bizarre quality, there’s a charming exaggeration at work while never feeling like it has departed from our own reality. It does favour a lot of nudity and sexuality but those things feed into the themes of the film, particularly consent and personal freedoms. The writing does a fantastic job of delving into rape culture and how men can have severely warped perspectives of where the lines and boundaries are. As well as exploring women’s relationships with their own bodies and the very relevant inclusion of patronising, cold behaviour that’s often encountered with male doctors.
There’s an abundance of personality at work here, through every element of The Balconettes but most of all in the three leading performances from Souheila Yacoub, Sanda Codreanu and Noémie Merlant. It’s effortless to watch these women at work, they create such real, complex characters with such captivating potential for problems. They have relentless energy, there’s a manic nature to it which means the film is forever moving forward at a quick pace, which again it is infectious. Each of them is slightly broken in the most relatable fashion, suffering from anxiety, self-esteem, loneliness and bad decisions.
The Balconettes is a genuinely brilliant mix of comedy, horror and fantasy, it’s funny yet poignant. Merlant tackles the topic of being a woman and rape culture through genre absurdly well, to create something that’s entertaining, empowering and a little bit nuts. It has a fantastically dark sense of humour, it moves so well and is utterly stylish. It creates a bubble of heatwave psychosis, it’s intense and feverish but also sharp and fun. Noémie Merlant has worked with some terrific directors in her career and clearly learned more than enough to then create her own stunning and exceptional style.
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