Described concisely by Jérôme Reybaud in his Locarno director’s notes as “a meeting of two women”, A Balcony in Limoges – the sophomore feature-length effort by the filmmaker after Four Days in France [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] (2016) – emerges as a prime example of how the absurd and offbeat can simply become, well, quite matter-of-fact. Reybaud returns to the Locarno Film Festival after his medium-length effort, Poitiers, in 2022, this time in the Filmmakers of the Present competition of the Swiss festival’s 78th edition. A Balcony in Limoges is never really a tale dictating morality at its core, but it might leave you contemplating human nature regardless.

Middle-aged nursing assistant Eugénie (Anne-Lise Heimburger) stumbles upon a woman passed out in her car, only to discover – with a hint of disdain – that it is someone with whom she attended technical college: Gladys (Fabienne Babe). The former makes a huge fuss about helping the latter out of a tough spot, and the audience is forced to consider the line between sheer goodwill and a saviour complex. The carefree Gladys, effectively unhoused, parties at will with her partner Fabrice (Patrice Gallet) and, in part, begins living off of the manic generosity of the judgemental conformist Eugénie. One question lingers: does helping someone guarantee you the right to determine what is right for them?

Reybaud turns this remarkably simple journey of two dichotomous women into something more, revealing the makings of an oddball dramedy predicated upon awkward encounters between characters, including the use of Eugénie’s young son Antoine (Antonin Battendier) as a psychological pawn. A chance encounter thus fatefully brings the two very different quinquagenarians together – but even between their disagreements, no confrontations in the conventional sense break out. Instead, something tenser flutters beneath the surface, epitomised by the recurrence of a male voiceover (about which we later discover more), implied to be watchful of everything happening on Eugénie’s titular balcony from the flat complex directly across.

The no-frills cinematography by Nicolas Contant lays out the relationship as it stands, wide shots framing the characters almost as if it were a stage play. The women, with their occasionally hostile demeanours, are hardly shielded from the harsh natural light of day amidst the cheerily green landscape – there’s no hiding one’s actions, Reybaud seems to say. Set off by a sprightly score by Léonard Lasry, the performances of Heimburger and Babe propel this sometimes peculiar, oft-unexpected, story into territory designed to bring the realm of radical impulse crashing through the realm of panopticon-like reality.

A Balcony in Limoges is a French production by Barberousse Films. Its international sales are managed by The Open Reel.