Les ballets écarlates

A film as terrible as this doesn't deserve exhaustive reviews and careful essays of film criticism.

It is an amateurish attempt, and in my view insulting, at tackling a notoriously sensitive subject matter. It does so tastelessly, unimaginatively and with performances so mediocre they border on caricature and parody, to the point one honestly wonders if this whole thing isn't a big joke at the viewer's expense.

I will say this: the imbeciles (Karl Zéro) complaining this film was "censored" should be reminded that distributing a film costs money. Who in their right mind, after surviving the ordeal of sitting through a screening of this turd, would want to distribute it? On top of that, the director saw fit to add insult to injury: a naked jab at the main French political party at the time, the "UMP", satirized in the film, with inspired subtlety, through the villain's candidacy as a member of the "UMPF"...

Many hundreds of films get made every year. Not all deserve to be screened at the cinema. This one certainly didn't.

The title refers to the "Ballets Bleus" and "Ballets Roses",orgies organized by pedophiles and involving Young boys and girls. Yves Boisset had already broached this burning subject about thirty years ago ,with "La Femme Flic" :he was not particular about details but his movie was saved by Miou-Miou as the lead.

Jean-Pierre Mocky was certainly brave -he did not find a Producer- to denounce these graybeards' vile behavior ,people rotten to the core,stinking rich;although we are told that pedophilia involves all the classes of the society,those ones have enough dough to get away with impunity.

Unfortunately he fails dismally :the lack of means is so glaring that it's impossible to take this story seriously;this may be the worst cast I have ever seen :the interpretation is so amateurish that it is involuntarily funny and some scenes turn the movie into a comedy ,or worse ,a parody.

One can save ,at a pinch ,the beginning: the wealthy men(and even women) ,gathering for their infamous feast ;the gentle lady (a former schoolteacher ,that crowns it!) taking the poor victims to a nice pool,then serving drugged refreshments...

But soon ,enough is enough!a doddering gun dealer-played by the director- and a gamekeeper's wife -whose son has disappeared ,whose husband has never overcome this tragic loss- taking the law in their hands ,a lawyer quoting Freud ("they don't become perverse,they remain so") as though he was reciting the alphabet ,the murder of the Young hero's sister ,her father ,getting knocked over by a car ,the fight in the hospital,the boy recognizing his oppressor on an election poster,the same being put to sleep by a blowpipe... and I could go on..

I must confess that,with a few exceptions ("L'Albatros" "Le Témoin" "Agent Trouble" "Noir Comme Le souvenir"),Mocky is not my cup of tea:but I do think that even Mocky's greatest fan can't praise such a dud .

NB:this movie was never released in the movie theaters ,only DVD ;censorship.