• 19/09/2022
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Le Bal des Folles: Sixth Sense review on Amazon<

Collective HYSTERY

If American Horror Story were to venture to France for a season at the Asylum, no doubt it would be at the Salpêtrière. Partly transformed into a women's prison during the 17th century, this large Parisian hospital became an entire nightmare at the end of the 19th century: it was the forced destination of thousands of women considered embarrassing to society, because of their age, their disability or illness. Piled up, mistreated, dehumanized, they were forgotten by the world. Among them were the "worst", the so-called crazy, more or less irrecoverable.Le Bal des Folles: Sixth Sense Review on Amazon Le Bal des Folles: Sixth Sense Review on Amazon

Coincidence or obviousness: after Alice Winocour with Augustine, where Vincent Lindon played the famous Professor Charcot, it is still a director who is interested in this dark and little-known page of French history. By adapting the book by Victoria Mas, published in 2019, Mélanie Laurent tells an entirely feminine point of view on this horror constructed by the masculine, with fathers and doctors self-proclaimed guardians of propriety.

It is therefore the story of Eugénie, a girl from a good family who is not only too rebellious in the eyes of a society that locks down the roles of everyone, and above all, of everyone. She also has the gift of hearing and seeing the dead. And since 19th century France is not an enchanted kingdom of Disney or a young adult novel, she is thrown by her father into the dungeon of La Pitié Salpêtrière, at the service of hysterics. Welcome to Hell.

Smells like real spirit

THE HOSPITAL AND ITS GHOSTS

Le Bal des Folles: sixth sense review on Amazon

Zero Mystery is based on Eugenie's donation. Very quickly, the doubt is swept away, and the fantastic character, assumed. She can actually hear and see the dead, even if Mélanie Laurent leaves this part of the universe totally invisible in the image. The question will then no longer be to determine whether she is mad or not, but whether her so-called madness will condemn her to life or, on the contrary, help her find a way out.

The film is a journey of survival, with two true-false obstacles embodied by two actresses: Mélanie Laurent and Emmanuelle Bercot, who pass the baton in the role of guardians of the temple who can waver in the face of Eugenie's gifts. And this is the first big brake on the script, co-written by the director and Christophe Deslandes (who had already signed Les Adoptés and Plonger together). These two roles mirror each other so much that the narrative seems to spin in circles and stretch, especially since the second woman is barely developed.

And like this new and only slightly crueler jailer, Le Bal des Folles stays at a distance, on the surface, choosing never to jump into the true horror of these places alongside the women. Even when the film is reminiscent of a Papillon-type prison abyss, it's only for a few scenes, and a lot of ellipses. Instead, the story gradually slips into a form of easy melodrama, until a grand finale where purely dramatico-dramatic mechanics complete the illusion.