Le Bal des folles

In reading some of the other reviews, I see people looking for answers to parts of the story that are really 'subplots' of the main story. This is a story of female bonds & friendships - particularly an understanding & friendship between two women who, due to opposing 'sides' in the foundation of the plot (I won't specify, as it would contain spoilers), would not be friends had it not been for a mutual understanding & an open-mindedness of a caring person working in a facility filled w very few individuals of that nature.

It is also a story of friendship among women who were suffering the victimization of the times & the misunderstanding of what it meant to be so easily mislabeled as mentally ill.

It's a beautiful story & I don't know if reviewers who are looking for solid 'answers' are used to American cinema & don't respect or understand what MAY just be cultural film differences; or it may just be the idea that the story is really just about friendships, sacrifice & freedom, not a story ending in a nice, satisfying fashion - folding up neatly in the end simply for viewer satisfaction.

There are subplots in the movie that will be left unanswered & while that might be frustrating to some, they ARE simply subplots that leave the viewer in a position to decide for oneself what may or may not have followed in the storyline.

I highly recommend this, although it's not action packed along the way there is something very beautiful about the entire story.

Ice water soakings, solitary confinement in dark cells, tranquilizers, and random body cavity inspections are just a sampling of the standard psychiatry treatments inflicted upon captive female patients in France 130 years ago. Free spirited Eugenie suffers debilitating visions that she cannot control or understand. She is only in need of some gentle guidance, understanding, and self-confidence. Instead, Eugenie is tricked by her parents and committed against her will to a cruel and misogynistic psychiatric ward. Abandoned by her relatives, Eugenie finds a different family among her unlucky ward sisters.

Women's history is reimagined in a scorching yet sensitive way by Melanie Laurent who directs and stars in the film. Thankfully the film is made in France, and therefore uncensored and blunt. While the film lacks cohesion and a little spark, it is enlightening and energizing to witness multidimensional, realistic, and complicated female characters, and women behind as well as on the screen who are defined not by men but by themselves.

World premiere seen at the Toronto international film festival.

About the 19th century psychiatry treatment of women in le hospitale salphetriere in paris, france. Its a well made jump back to the past, where womens destiny where the mens decision, a fathers decision, a brothers decision or a husbands decision, if you were apart from the common term of normality, they could put you in a house for madwomen with a blink of an eye.

Acting is superb, though the story might feel a bit shallow and it-ified, where the caracter build is purely towards the main caracter, i feel far more shouldve been spent on the copatients and doctors, who many of them where real life caracters..

staging of the sets are impecable, youe drawn into a miljoe of darkness and madness, the musical score that contains lots of deep cello tones do enhance the tragedy of them lost soles in the socalled human care business, thank god things have cchanged to the better, but still humanity has a giant leap to take to make psychiatric care and medicine perfect.

Its a french edition of the typical dickensian british take on the mental ill a good take thinks the grumpy old man, but not perfect.

My dear Geneviève, we are free...

After Oxygen, Mélanie Laurent returns directing and starring in an Amazon original.

As a director, Laurent did a great job showing the cruelty in the treatment of women in asylum back in the days. The "therapies" were nothing different from tortures. However, within the cruelty was the premise that added heart to the characters. I liked that the movie didn't scream feminism, but let the scenes play out so audiences could root for the women characters.

Probably my only problem was the movie became pretty predictable near the end. I liked how the two main characters were tied to each other, but what became of it was quite clear and not surprising.

Overall, a solid and well done movie. 7.5/10.

Lou de Laage is Eugenie, a headstrong woman who is committed to an insane asylum in 1885 France by her wealthy and domineering father. Victor Hugo's funeral opens the film and Eugenie was amongst the large crowd.

The young woman goes into fits and claims to communicate with the spirits of the dead. She finds a long lost necklace of her grandmother's while in such a state. Somehow, this event does not convince the rest of her family of her ESP like abilities.

At the asylum, Eugenie is subject to all kinds of atrocious "therapies," including ice baths and a month long stay in a what looks like a dungeon.

De Laage is magnificent in the lead and she can be seen as a doctor in postwar Germany in The Innocents. The actress deserves more widespread recognition.

The Mad Women's Ball is difficult to watch but a very good movie.