Les Ballets écarlates (2007) Directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky
Comedy / Drama / Crime
Film Review
With Les Ballets écarlates,
agent provocateur director Jean-Pierre Mocky treads on more
controversial ground than usual, so controversial in fact that it was
banned by France's Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and
never had a commercial release in cinemas (it was seen for the first
time when it came out on DVD in 2007). The film is inspired
by the notorious 'Ballets roses' scandal which shook France in 1959 and
concerned a paedophile ring of 23 people including some prominent
public figures. Mocky being Mocky, the film is intended to be a
black comedy but it is so ineptly made and so drenched in bad taste
that it isn't remotely funny. The French government may have done
Mocky a favour as Les Ballets
écarlates is surely one of his worst films, not because
of its sick idea of humour but because every aspect of the production
reeks of wanton amateurishness. The acting is horrendous
throughout (either the entire film was under-rehearsed or the actors
just couldn't be bothered) and Mocky's direction is equally
undistinguished. Mocky claimed that his intention in making
the film was to attack 'institutionalised paedophilia', which he
belived was still a real phenomenon in presentday France. If only
he had made the film with more care it could have been a chilling
eye-opener, rather than one that lacks credibility in just about
every department.
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Next Jean-Pierre Mocky film: Crédit pour tous (2011)
Film Synopsis
In an anonymous little town in France, a group of privileged individuals
amuse themselves by organising debauched parties at which they indulge their
paedophilic appetites with whatever children they can lure to their clandestine
meetings. One of these soirees doesn't go quite according to plan when
a little boy named Eric manages to evade his captors before they can have
their fun with him. The boy takes refuge in the woods nearby, and it
is here that he finds a suitably resilient protectress, Violaine. It
was two years ago that Violaine's own son went missing and, despite her best
efforts, she has failed to shed any light on his disappearance. Once
she has gained the boy's confidence, she listens with interest to what Eric
has to tell her. The child's confused account chimes with Violaine's
own suspicions that there is a paedophile ring operating in the town, abducting,
abusing and possibly even murdering young children. Galvanised by the
fact that she has some concrete evidence to back up her theories, Violaine
embarks on her campaign of revenge, determined to bring a fitting punishment
to the perverts who have ruined her life and the lives of many others...