Le Bal is a 1983 film directed by Ettore Scola. Vladimir Cosma composed the soundtrack.
It tells the history of France in The 20th Century, 1936-1983, as seen on the dance floor of a single nightclub. Vignettes from the movie are set in 1936 (the victory of the Popular Front during The Great Depression), 1940 (France defeated and occupied by the Germans during World War II), 1944 (the Liberation), 1946 (profiteers in the postwar context), 1956 (rock music, the Algerian war), 1968 (the May '68 protests), and 1983 (disco!).
The same cast of actors play different characters over all time periods. There is not a word of spoken dialogue in the movie: all the stories are played out Silent Movie style, with dancing, pantomime, costumes, and music, all on the single nightclub set.
Tropes:
- Age Cut: The opening scene has the bartender turning on the lights and then the guests (the cast of the film) showing up. After all the cast members are shown the movie cuts back to the elderly bartender. There's a puff of steam from the bar, which dissipates to show the bartender looking forty-odd years younger, as the scene has jumped back to 1936.
- All There in the Manual: Some of the dates are easy enough to fix, like the liberation in 1944. But others, like the 1950s scene, are not. The exact dates are given by the list of music in the end credits.
- An Arm and a Leg: The dancers in the nightclub are celebrating the liberation in 1944. One woman, who has been showing people pictures of her missing lover, turns to see him on the stairs, missing one leg and using a crutch. The dancing comes to a stop as the man limps over to his lover, sets aside his crutch, embraces her—and starts dancing by hopping on one foot.
- Book Ends: The film begins by showing the elderly bartender turning on the lights. It ends by showing the elderly bartender turning off the lights.
- Coat Full of Contraband: The 1946 sequence features a man selling contraband goods from his coat; he sells some stuff to the lady washroom attendant.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The opening sequence, from 1936, has most of the color leached out of the image, although it isn't technically black-and-white.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Racism towards the young man who is evidently supposed to be Algerian, in the 1956 sequence. Most of the white women in the club resist his invitations to dance. When one woman stands up to accept, all the dancers freeze, until she sits back down. Later the young man is beaten up by a burly fellow (either a cop or a bouncer) in the bathrooms, until he's dragged out, bleeding, by a cop.
- Epic Tracking Shot: The 1946 sequence includes a five-minute tracking shot that follows a man in a tuxedo and a woman in a red dress as they dance. The camera follows the dnacers around the dance floor, through the rear doors, and into the washroom. As the two dancers presumably have a quick pee the camera lingers to show the Coat Full of Contraband guy selling stuff to the attendant, before the dancers exit, and the camera swoops back into the ballroom with them, before the shot finally cuts.
- Expy: The tough guy in the 1936 sequence—trench coat, fedora, cigarette, set jaw—is obviously an imitation of Jean Gabin.
- Feet-First Introduction: The cop in the 1956 sequence is shown this way, as one of the greasers rolls a beer bottle, which rolls to the cop's feet before the camera pans up.
- Greaser Delinquents: They get the 1956 segment rolling. Three greasers show up, two men and a women. They all have the standard blue jeans and leather jackets and, in the case of the men, slicked-back hair. They also force a change of music in the club, going from swing to rock with "Tutti Frutti".
- Happily Failed Suicide: The 1936 scene has the High-Class Glass aristocrat staggering back to the restrooms in despair after watching his wife kissing the Jean Gabin-esque tough guy. He smashes a champagne glass and is about to slit his wrists with a shard when the tough guy, who has entered the restroom, grabs his arm. They go back out, the tough guy leaves with the woman he was originally dancing with, and the aristocrat is reunited with his wife, apparently happily.
- High-Class Glass: The aristocrat in the opening sequence wears such a glass. It's played for comedy when the glass keeps popping out when the aristocrat is surprised. It pops out when he sees his wife dancing with another man. When the wife kisses the other man, the aristocrat's glass pops out and falls in his champagne.
- Idiosyncratic Wipe: Scene transitions are made with a photographer's flash, which dissolves to a black-and-white photo of the crowd, hanging on the wall of the club. The camera then pans to the next time era.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The aristocrat in 1936 ups the ante from "I need a freaking drink" to "I need a snort of cocaine." When he sees his wife dancing with another man he lays out some lines of coke on his table, then bends over to sniff them, only for an attentive waiter to jump over and wipe the powder off his table.
- Intro Dump: The opening sequence has all the women arrive one at a time, and primp at the mirror in the back. Then all the men arrive and line up at the top of the stairs, and the camera pans past them. Then, after the viewers have seen everyone's faces, the story begins.
- Les Collaborateurs: The trenchcoat-wearing Frenchman accompanying the Nazi officer in the 1940-1944 sequences. He tries to force some of the French ladies in the club to dance with the German. When they all refuse, the Frenchman dances with the German himself, looking up at the taller man soulfully. When liberation comes, the weaselly collaborator tries to join the joyful circle dance happening on the floor, only to be rejected and tossed out.
- Nameless Narrative: No names given for any characters.
- Second-Face Smoke: The bouncer (maybe? maybe a cop?) blows smoke in the face of the Algerian (?) man he is intimidating. The young man then blows smoke right back in the face of the bouncer. This gets him a trip to the bathroom where he is beaten bloody.
- Silence Is Golden: Not a word spoken throughout the movie. And other than a banner and newspaper dating the opening sequence to 1936 and the victory of the Popular Front, there isn't any printed exposition either. In that sense at least this film is more silent than most silent films which used title cards for exposition. The story is told wholly through pantomime and music. The German occupation is shown by a Nazi officer arriving at the club, and liberation is shown by the German officer hurriedly leaving, followed by ringing church bells. The May 1968 protests are dramatized by sounds of rioting and police alarms from the streets.
- Splash of Color: The 1936 sequence has most of the color desaturated, but reds stand out, like the one woman who's wearing a red hat and a red scarf. This is probably meant to evoke the association of the color red with socialsm, as 1936 saw the left-wing Popular Front win an election in France.
- Video Credits: They play at the end. They're basically mandatory in a film with no dialogue and no names.
