Inspired by a particularly lurid fait divers — the kind that has long fascinated filmmakers — A Balcony in Limoges, Jérôme Reybaud’s latest film presented in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente at Locarno, not only breaks with expectations surrounding a director known for works as varied as Qui êtes-vous Paul Vecchiali? (2012) and 4 Days in France (2017), but also surprises with its almost ironic lightness in tackling a clash of worlds: the blind conformity of the so-called “little soldiers of virtue” and the absolute nihilism of those who couldn’t care less — as long as they can keep dancing.
The film follows Gladys (Fabienne Babe), a woman living on the fringes of society, and Eugénie (Anne-Lise Heimburger), a mother who, after a chance encounter, decides to “rescue” her former classmate — against her will. What unfolds is a tense cohabitation, observed in silence by a teacher from across the street, whose voiceover functions as a discreet, alternative perspective, and by the unsettling innocence of Eugénie’s young son, a mute and Covid-masked witness to a drama unfolding beneath the surface of the everyday.
Reybaud isn’t here to judge or save the world — nor the people in it. He observes. And in doing so, he dismantles, with biting irony, a society increasingly polarised: on one side, those who blindly rally to fashionable causes — from Afghan to Ukrainian refugees; on the other, those who respond with a blunt “F*** Ukraine”.
Yet the film suggests that the real danger lies not in nihilism or hedonism, but in the conformist’s moral certainty — the conviction that the other is dangerous, a contaminant to be removed. Not merely unwanted, but seen as an existential threat to the very society they are so eager to police.
With a subtle, understated build — free from the conventions of a thriller — the film crackles with intensity, driven by two accomplished stage actresses whose deep ideological clash generates palpable tension. A Balcony in Limoges reveals itself by the end as a jaw-dropping black comedy — one in which horror slips onto the screen with the unsettling simplicity of the banal.