THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL plays TIFF 2021

“It’s hard to know who is mad tonight…”

THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL by director Mélanie Laurent begins with the funeral of Victor Hugo. As we weave through the crowd and see the carriage go by, we are asked to remember a person who wrote about criminal justice and the treatment of women.

It’s not a coincidence.

This film is the story of Eugénie Cléry (Lou de Laâge). Eugénie is curious and independent (which her father disapproves of) and also, apparently, clairvoyant (which he does not abide). When her paranormal talents manifest one time too many, the french aristocrat has his daughter committed to a neurological clinic which is much more prison than it is hospital.

Here she crosses paths with a nurse named Geneviève (Laurent) who begins their time together following her superiors’ instructions to the letter. Slowly, Geneviève is shown more and more of the realities of the system she is enabling and irrefutable proof that Eugénie is not even half as mad as she is said to be.

Not so long ago, so very many women who displayed more than a moderate amount of emotion were declared “mad”. Those with say over their lives (read: men) could end this abundance of excess, or feeling, or resistance, by signing a form and having their wives, mothers, daughters, and so many other women in their orbit locked behind very thick walls.

It would be comforting to say that such behaviour is in the past – but as we watch Mélanie Laurent’s film, it becomes apparent that this behaviour is still quite present. The cells may be more metaphorical, the labels re-worded, the treatment more modern – but make no mistake, the parallels of stories like this and modern-day life are apparent.

What’s more, THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL speaks to our ability to deny what is right in front of us. Whenever a doctor or nurse in this story does not accept what they see with their own eyes, we are reminded of just how often a truth stares us in the face but is waved away because it disagrees or inconveniences the narrative of our own self-interest.

THE MAD WOMEN’S BALL is a handsome and affecting work by Mélanie Laurent. It paints with our cold terror of the unknown and produces a portrait of injustice. It begs for us to look and to listen – and, if we dare, to speak for those with no voice.

In a story like this, it certainly is hard to tell precisely who the mad people are. Laurent’s point with the line is clear though: Who is and isn’t mad always comes down to the decision of those in position to make the call.