The Balconettes

Bluesky

Marseilles used to be known for its breezy Mediterranean climate, warm but comfortable thanks to the wind from the sea, but these days, like much of that part of the world, it’s getting seriously, unpleasantly hot. One can almost smell the heat as we ease around a corner into the back court where Noémie Merlant’s second directorial feature is set, Rear Window style. We see sweat glistening on the bodies of women stretched out in their windows or on their balconies, no longer caring what the neighbours think of them. There’s an animality to it, a regression to more primitive concerns. One woman snaps, consumed, after what might have been many years of patient suffering, by a homicidal rage. And then there are the balconettes.

Let’s introduce them in reverse order. There is Élise (played by Merlant herself), an actress escaping from her suffocating marriage to spend time with her friends. There’s Ruby (Souheila Yacoub), a cam girl with an assortment of lovers, a fabulous wardrobe and no patience left for other people’s prejudice. And there’s Nicole (Sanda Codreanu), a writer struggling with her latest book who, whilst the others spend much of their time being looked at, prefers to be one who looks. In particular, she looks at the man in the building opposite, who often wanders around topless, and fantasises about the relationship they could have if he felt the same way. Her friends urge her to talk to him. An accident results in them getting his number. But perhaps some things are best left in the realms of fantasy.

The film is a brash, vulgar, joyously realistic portrait of a three-way friendship with roots that run deep. It won Merlant the Queer Palm at Cannes 2024 and it really stands out in the context of French cinema, with its long tradition of objectifying women. Here, everything is seen from a female perspective. There is no mystery attached to women’s desires, and women’s bodies are presented as flesh for living in, functional, practical, not things to be fetishised or shamed or controlled. In one particularly bold shot in a gynaecologist’s office, Merlant strikes a pose that would terrify those still impressed by Sharon Stone’s infamously coerced turn in Basic Instinct. The message is clear: here we are. Get used to it.

The intersection of such humble yet somehow Utopian demands with the world as we know it could never be easy, and about halfway through, The Balconettes takes a dark turn, with imagery that would impress the average horror crowd and a gut-wrenching performance of distress by one of its stars. The playful comedy of the opening stretches gives way to a mixture of ongoing horror and deliciously dark humour, then adds a dash of absurdity as a ghost story plot emerges, creating space for discussions about power, morality and consequences. Throughout, the film refuses to play by the rules, especially where the interactions between the women are concerned. Emotional logic does not follow its prescribed course. The characters persist in behaving like human beings.

As its bright colours giving way to a luminous night in which female bodies of all shapes and sizes are liberated, given glorious agency, another kind of magic comes into play. The film is beautiful throughout, with some delightful cinematic tricks employed to remind us of the heat; it also strikes a very precise balance between the imaginary and the real, expressing this visually, narratively and thematically. Its humour is lively, its characters charismatic, its liberatory vision a heady thing, and it feels not just enchanting but, in itself, a form of enchantment: the opening of a gate. What we would make happen we much first imagine. One waits eagerly to see what Merlant will do next, and what others will do in her wake.

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