The Balcony

The Balcony is not just an ordinary extension to your house ... in this film it is a place where mortal men go to live out their fantasies. It is a modern day dream castle, where men can escape from the hardships of the real world and act out lives of important people that they may never have the opportunity of becoming. I use the word men for a reason in this review, because the "Balcony" is a brothel. It is a place where men go to fulfill not just their sexual fantasies, but also their dreams. If one wants to become the Bishop; he can go to the "Balcony" and demand that women tell him their sins. If one wants to become the strongest General in the English army with a trusty steed by his side all that he needs to do is go to the "Balcony" and a woman will become his sidekick. There is even a place for men to become Justices of the Supreme Court; carrying out sentences to the women that they hire. Rooted with deep political and sexual undertones, this black comedy digs deep into your soul and your mind. Adapted by the play by Jean Genet, we watch as three men live out their fantasies as their troubled country is rocked right outside the doors by a gang of rebels.

With the revolution happening outside, the business has been tough, but the ladies seem to be surviving. Everyone is happy, until Peter Falk enters the scene. He plays the police chief who is trying to bring the rebels outside to justice. He is also the man who is dating the owner of the brothel played by Shelly Winters. He does not know how to bring the rebels to justice and keep the moral of the people and troops together when the Bishop, General, and Justice have all been murdered. Then he finds his answer in the least of places. He gets the women of the brothel to ask the three men to become stand-ins for the actual leaders of the country. After much persuasion, they say "yes" and begin their voyage outside into the "real world" wearing the masks of their fantasies. At first they succeed, but soon the power reaches even these imposters as they begin to change the rules in their positions. As relations begin to heat up again, a surprise twist shows us that role-play can happen in the most common places.

Director Joseph Strick takes on quite a daunting task with his film adaptation. The Balcony is very racy at times and definitely pushes the envelope, but it is the film's subtle humor that keeps it from becoming all too serious. The wild fantasies played out inside the Balcony are turned into something that can put an end to the violent revolution. While the film is mainly comedic, there are metaphors abound. The brothel itself becomes the main symbol of an unruly, but acceptable, community where morals and standards are nowhere to be found.

The violence outside its doors mirrors the activity in the brothel. It seemingly tells us that without standards anything can happen and be accepted. The brothel may even come out on top, as the madam says, "We don't allow death in here." I felt as I watched it that I was watching a film that had been made this year. The dark themes, the powerful images, and even the switching ending are all issues that Hollywood uses in everyday film today. It is not something that you see in 1963 (when this film was made). I applaud this film for taking chances, and while it isn't the greatest film out there, it should gain respect with the deeply rooted symbolism that it carries. I especially loved the ending. Look to see an interesting 'side' of Nimoy and Falk. This film also explores the issue that we may carry the clothes of power, but without them ... without anything on our backs ... we are just the same as the next man or woman. We are all human.

I also enjoyed the idea of throwing standards to the wayside. That is the major theme of this film. Without standards, you have the violence that happened outside of the "Balcony" ... without standards you have people imagining worlds that do not exist, living lives that they have not earned, and not caring about consequences just people's reaction to themselves. This is obvious when the three unknowns head out onto the city to bring peace, God, and justice to the unknowing people. They do not care that they do not have the training for this power, all they care about being able to feel like they have the power if only for just one moment.

Overall, this film was a scary and interesting when you begin to think about it on a different level than just a comedy. This movie will rank as one of the oddest films I have ever watched in my film career, but one that will remain in my mind forever.

Grade: **** out of *****

Jean Genet's great surrealist comedy was filmed, brilliantly in 1963, by Joseph Strick and is thought to be among the first American art-movies. It's certainly not commercial and Strick makes few real concessions to the medium. It's stage-bound (sound stage-bound?)and no mistake and probably all the better for it and the translation, (it is scripted by Ben Maddow), is first-class.

Set, fundamentally, in a brothel which is more a 'house of illusion' in an unnamed country during a revolution it's about artifice and role-playing, power games for the under-privileged. When the real Minister of Justice, Archbishop and General are killed three of Madame Irma's customers take on the roles under the guidance of the real Chief of Police, (Peter Falk). Nothing really happens and nothing is really resolved. 'You can go home now', Madame Irma tell us, the audience, after the revolution appears to be quashed. Everything is an illusion.she assures us, even real life.

This may well be Genet's best work and Strick and Maddow do it proud. The performances are first-rate. Shelly Winters is particularly fine as the bisexual Madame Irma and Lee Grant is often astonishing as her assistant and part-time lover Carmen. (When this movie came out Grant had yet to make much of an impression on the big screen). Although miscast, Peter Falk handles his speech to the crowds beautifully. Daring in its day, (we have foot fetishism and a lesbian kiss), the film quickly disappeared from the circuits despite very favourable reviews and today is seldom seem. But it is still a classic and really should not be missed.

Failed minds, postmodernists who recognize no means of defining the categories of reality, and recognize no hard-and-fast universe of what is real and what is not are "impractical" at achieving any sort of results; how could anyone unable to define what a film is confront an allegorical work of art? How, I ask could anyone understand a one-to-one correspondence between a 'second level of reference' and a primary one, if one is helpless to comprehend the priorities and internal-dynamic properties of the first? Case in point: the way in which imprecise thinkers try, mentally, to approach Joseph Strick's well-paced filmic version of Jean Genet's "The Balcony". "The Balcony" is a favorite film of mine; not because of its obscurity, and I grant it can be read in several ways at some places; I like it rather because its author tries to deal with the false philosophy of "postmodernism" itself; this is a film used for exposing its utter vacuousness. The way the author, and Ben Maddow in his perceptive screenplay, tried to show why pretension, authority-structures and believers are an endless circle of meaningless human shells was devastatingly simple. The author staged a revolution, in an unnamed urban city. Instead of dealing with specifics, the filmmaker followed his plot line by providing graphic images of what happens during any rebellion or revolt--a categorical expose of rebellions and revolutions as violent exercises of disagreement by dissidents; then he confined the dramatic action for the most part to a brothel; there under the direction of Madame (Shelley Winters) and her assistant (Lee Grant), clients play out their fantasies about power--using women as their paid "victims", co-participants and surrogate result-receivers and perpetrators. The Madam's boy friend, the real Chief of Police, (Peter Falk) then enters and is desperate. The General of the army, the Bishop of the Church and the the chief Justice of the country have all been killed; Madam suggests replacements--her best clients are better than the originals at these roles. He is persuaded. So are they. But once they have been sworn in outside, the rebellion gets real for them too. And they, and the rebel leader and the chief, are all driven back inside, to confront the emptiness of their exercises of power--the fact that only power over the real universe and oneself matter; that any other sort of "power- mongering" is meaningless after all; since pretensions are universal and a pragmatic structure that argues only that, "The Establishment needs to be maintained", its proponents forget that this is as anarchistic a premise as is anarchy--"any rebellion on any terms"--would have been. In the film, there are a few moments that seem like stage moments; but most of the narrative I suggestis fought out on a idea-level far above the average film. As the Madam, Shelley Winters is very capable but seems to play the film on too literal a level here and there; Grant is much slyer and in keeping with the spirit of the work. As the police chief, Falk keeps his difficult role this side of surreality with considerable skill; as his opponent, Leonard Nimoy seems very capable also. As the three power figures, Kent Smith as the General is superb, full-voiced, authoritative and compelling; Jeff Corey makes an arch Bishop, intellectual and devious; and Peter Brocco as the Judge is a well-trained classic actor also, very much capable of delivering judgments. As the women they boss over and are controlled by, Arnette Jens, Joyce Jameson and Ruby Dee are all very good and very intelligent; it is to be regretted all have been denied more work in films and the longer parts they deserved to play. The film's ending is celebrated; as some reviewers have noted, the ending working as well on film as it did in the staged version--you will have to view the film to judge this point for yourself; but the film seems to have been made yesterday, as others have suggested largely because its authors handle ideas about reality on a level of categorical truth, not specifics. George Folsey is credited with the cinematography, which is quite varied and difficult; the remainder of the credits are those of the original stage production used here in a translated fashion. The use of the characters within the brothel to comment upon the actions going on in the outside world needs to be noted; this chorus-like rediscovery, notable in "Pride and Prejudice" for instance, is a genuine reviving of an idea-level often missing from post WWII works. The title "The Balcony" refers to the idea that those not immediately engaged in activities within the "house" are spectators of reality, hence able to comment upon its ongoing progress; this also means they can do so in a sense relative to the world outside their limited mini-universe, being detached observers like those in a theatrical "balcony". I urge everyone interested in powerful drama to give this interesting "stunt" or limited-allegory of the world a try. I am an admirer of its purpose and of its execution.

This is absolutely NOT a film for the theatrically illiterate or anyone who cannot accept a film which is less than realistic and into the exploration of the fantasies film is supposed to look at (dare we admit it is stage influenced - but not stage bound?). Those who simply want a mindless night at a "fun" film had best look elsewhere, but for anyone who has a mind and enjoys using it, who knows what Existentialism is, or who enjoys really good acting in demanding texts, the 1963 adaptation Ben Maddow made of Genet's 1959 draft of THE BALCONY in consultation with the original author is close to a "must see." Moving smoothly from the horrifying stock footage of the wartime rioting as the Germans were withdrawing from Paris and radicals were wreaking vengeance on "collaborators" (representing an unnamed country in revolution) through shots establishing a very young and handsome Leonard Nimoy as a revolutionary the film quickly settles into the studio produced isolation of a prominent brothel where clients can act out any fantasy and Genet can use these fantasies to examine the nature of power and relationships - even for a moment drawing back the tenuous curtain separating fantasy and reality.

Top billed Shelly Winters as the madame may never have given a better, subtler performance, and the later all to irritating (as television's Columbo) Peter Falk gives a performance of sustained intensity as a man who thinks he's in charge of his destiny - very reminiscent of the best Twilight Zone work.

All too often overlooked in the uniformly solid cast are Ruby Dee (between her stage triumphs in PURLIE VICTORIOUS and A RAISIN IN THE SUN and recreating them on film) as a woman on trial, Jeff Corey (a versatile character actor with over 200 movie and TV credits including everything from Perry Mason to Star Trek) as "the Bishop," Kent Smith (with a resume akin to Corey's but possibly best known as Peter Keating in the movie of THE FOUNTAINHEAD) as the "General" and famously Blacklisted Lee Grant (just coming off that painful period) as one of Ms. Winters' "girls." Despite the brilliance of all concerned, the film has had its problems It was made at a time when, even if independent films could get around the political bigotry of the previous decade, they were still not immune to the pressure of a sexual puritanism which had a major studio first force a damaging rewrite then refuse to issue an important Billy Wilder film (KISS ME STUPID) under its own name because it appeared to endorse infidelity. The screenplay of THE BALCONY is, on many levels, "tamer" than the stage version. The castration of a character is eliminated as are most homosexual references and exposed skin is kept to a minimum, and it may have been still further Bowdlerized in regional release, but the essential ideas are there for any with the wit to explore them.

If you're up to it (and many viewers will recognize that Rod Serling clearly was), this is a journey through time and space - and one's mind - well worth taking.

Directed by Joseph Strick, this 1963 movie is a heady mix of philosophy and psychology. The dialogue comes from the French playwright Jean Genet, and rises well above the literary merits of all but a few American films. Beyond its cerebral wordiness - which could well seem unintelligible, but could just as easily be found rewarding for its challenges - this film offers distinctive and remarkable observations on all manner of things, from identity & authority to violence, sex, & the will to power. The movie is largely shot in dark, eerie interiors, and it looks and feels stagebound: this is not necessarily a flaw. The stark & claustrophobic black & white frames help keep a simmering tension amid even the (darkly) humorous passages. The unconvincing "special effects", such as they are, should not be taken out of context: the occasional shots of the outside world are deliberately dreamlike & unrealistic. Redolent of the postwar avant-garde theater of Beckett and Ionescu, this is a surreal vision, and it's one worth exploring. (Shelley Winters performs a career-high bravura as the Madame, and the score is by Stravinsky.)