Noémie Merlant has played leading roles in films such as Céline Sciamma's "Portrait of a Woman on Fire" and Audrey Diwan's "Emmanuelle". "The Balconettes" she has written together with Sciamma and she herself plays one of the leading roles in the film.
I've been through extremely traumatic experiences, this helped me to let go of certain things, to not feel like a victim, she says to TT.
The film takes place on a sweltering day in Marseille. Three women spend their days on the balcony like most others in the neighborhood. The heat makes them undress. A handsome man in the house across the square invites them over – and when he tries to rape Ruby, she kills him. What to do? Maybe dismember the body…
Comedy and Splatter
The story that follows blends comedy, drama, splatter, and horror.
I wanted to mix it to be able to explore femininity, sexual violence, how to become free. When you mix genres, everything is possible. Then you can break with all ideas of being elegant, you can ignore good behavior, says Noémie Merlant and continues:
Horror has always been used by men. Now we're taking back the genre. The fact that more and more women are directing horror has to do with the violence we've been subjected to, about the oppression we've faced.
Noémie Merlant wanted to show how women can react to violence, she says.
It's about self-defense, I wanted to play with this, with violence as defense. That's why the film is bloody, it's like the violence in cartoons, it's exaggerated.
"A Crazy World"
In the film, all men are antagonists. Noémie Merlant describes it as "a crazy world, a nightmare".
Society gives far too much space to aggression, we hear far too little from the other side, from the oppressed. I thought about writing in a nice guy in the script, but my boyfriend thought it would be wrong. He said that then all men who see the film will identify with the nice one. And I couldn't have that.
Merlant doesn't want to go into what she herself has been subjected to, but notes:
It had a cathartic effect for me, to take up the violence I've endured.
Age: 36 years.
Family: Boyfriend.
Lives: In Paris.
Occupation: Actress, director.
Previous films in selection: "A Wild Summer", "Portrait of a Woman on Fire", "Paris 13th arrondissement", "Tár", "A Tough Year", "Lee", "Emmanuelle".
Currently: In "The Balconettes" which will have its Swedish cinema premiere on 14/2.
