The Mad Woman's Ball

Mélanie Laurent never ceases to surprise us and has succeeded in establishing herself not only as an excellent actress but also as a very talented director who has managed to take a real look at the presence and importance of women in our society today. Her first four films Les Adoptés (2011), Respire (2014), Plonger (2017), Galveston (2018) and her documentary Demain (2015) co-directed with Cyril Dion testify that she is a true complete artist who is equally at ease in front of or behind the camera as well as in writing screenplays. We feel her will to be truly independent in order to deliver the films she can make while keeping intact her view on our society. Her latest film, The Mad Woman's Ball, not only allows her to export French cinema worldwide, whether it be in the framework of the TIFF where this film was in official competition, but also by offering this film exclusively on Prime Video with a worldwide release. 

Assisted in writing the screenplay for The Mad Woman's Ball by Christophe Deslandes, Mélanie Laurent adapts to the screen the eponymous bestseller by Victoria Mas published in France by Editions Albin Michel. Set in the middle of the 19th century, The Mad Woman's Ball is a historical drama with a perfect cast that shows how a young woman from a good family sees her life turn into a nightmare because of a gift that some interpret as madness.

Le Bal des Folles tells the story of Eugenie (Lou de Laâge), a bright and passionate young girl who stands out in her late 19th century bourgeois milieu. When her family learns that she communicates with spirits, they decide to have Eugenie committed. She is thus taken by force by her father and brother to the neurological clinic of the Salpêtrière directed by the eminent Professor Charcot (Grégoire Bonnet), one of the pioneers of neurology and psychiatry. La Salpêtrière welcomed women diagnosed as hysterical, insane, epileptic, physically or mentally ill. In this place, far from Eugenie's bourgeois milieu, women were subjected to experiments, conducted by unscrupulous doctors, in the name of science. It is then that the young woman's path crosses that of Geneviève (Mélanie Laurent), a nurse in the neurological unit. Geneviève is consumed by the disappearance of her sister. She leads a monotonous life, between her father, a former doctor, whom she must take care of, and Professor Charcot, to whom she is totally devoted. But the arrival of Eugenie will change everything. The meeting of the two women will change their destiny forever as they prepare to attend the famous "Bal des Folles", organized every year by Professor Charcot, in the clinic.

The director Mélanie Laurent delivers here a film strong in emotions and benefiting from an excellent casting in which we find around her Lou de Laâge, Emmanuelle Bercot, Benjamin Voisin, Cédric Khan, Grégoire Bonnet. It is interesting to see that behind the risk of proposing a film in costumes, the director and co-writer again wants to put in the center of it an essentially female cast and to draw a portrait hardly enviable of the male gender. The Mad Woman's Ball is undoubtedly her best film to date and above all her most mastered, as she seems to have gained real experience as a director and in directing actors by giving them strong and striking roles. While the character that Mélanie Laurent interprets here in her film is transparent and calm, she simply gives Lou de Laâge her best role. The latter really delivers here a remarkable role of composition. 

The Mad Woman's Ball points the finger at a society in which any behavior deemed abnormal is punishable by a serious sentence, such as incarceration in a psychiatric asylum. It is impossible to remain indifferent in front of a perfectly mastered film that takes a real look at a world that obeys too strict rules and reveals a real lack of open-mindedness. In this asylum at the center of the film, the patients are mere guinea pigs for doctors who are more interested in making a name for themselves than in advancing science.

The omnipresent violence and the atmosphere of the film will remind some people of Alan Parker's Midnight Express (1978), but by transforming the masculine environment of this film into a feminine version in a period that was not very glorious for France and in which women did not have the same rights as men and had to be satisfied with being beautiful and keeping quiet. Certainly, Eugenie was a woman ahead of her time and her strength and fragility at the same time make her a romantic heroine and The Mad Woman's Ball a new undeniable success for Melanie Laurent.

Finally, we note that The Mad Woman's Ball is the first French Amazon Original film and will be launched in France and worldwide on Amazon Prime Video on September 17. We can only welcome this way to highlight French cinema in a global context.

The Mad Woman's Ball
Directed by Mélanie Laurent
Screenplay by Mélanie Laurent, Christophe Deslandes
Based on Le bal des folles by Victoria Mas
Produced by Alain Goldman, Axelle Boucaï
Starring Mélanie Laurent, Lou de Laâge, Emmanuelle Bercot, Benjamin Voisin, Cédric Khan, Grégoire Bonnet
Cinematography : Nicolas Karakatsanis
Edited by Anny Danché
Production companies : Légende Films
Distributed by Amazon Studios
Release date : September 10 2021 (TIFF), September 17 2021 (World)
Running time : 121 minutes

Seen on September 7 2021 (screener press)

Mulder's Mark: