For me, the phrase moving picture describes a story told visually through a narrative engine that moves the experience along. Even though Ballroom starts interestingly, with the basic bones of a story, it morphs quickly into a cryptic puzzler before lumbering towards apredictably ambiguous and meangingless conclusion. Though it’s full of visual and mental ooh-ahs, it's too inscrutable for its own good -film festival hell.

René (Patrick-Mario Bernard) is a visual artist who lives with his partner, writer Patrick (Xavier Brillat), in an old ballroom on the French coast. Patrick is suffering from writers’ block, René is beset by visions of two old comedians who he believes are living in the cellar. René visits the doctor and is placed on antidepressants, the couple hold a Christmas party for their friends, and are giving matching wetsuits as gifts. René’s agent arrives from town, pressing for some new work, and is disturbed by his client’s rapidly degenerating state of mind. Throughout, radio and TV coverage of hapless European refugees, discovered hiding out in trucks and train carriages in the Chunnel, plays loudly, time stamping the film and acting like a parallel story/allegory/analogy (I guess).

René’s profession allows for striking imagery/symbolism, as he works with rotating shadows, inflatable bears, and dresses made from bubble wrap. Patrick’s creative constipation is echoed by his bedroom troubles, where he’s reluctant to be the bottom. They make for an interesting couple, but the film is bleached of emotion and the abstract narrative sees them both transported into surreal-o world by mid film, and so we don’t really learn anything about their relationship other than that it’s René who seems to do most of the grocery shopping and cooking, while Patrick is more extroverted - the successful and outgoing one.

Maybe it's because Ballroom has three directors that it lurches from one idea to the next, and doesn’t seem to be fluent in its own language. The plight of the refugees doesn’t appear to have any role beyond providing hot soundbytes, as newscasters glumly describe the latest radar inspection techniques and count off the latest number of internees. The appearance of the clowns in the basement is built up as the central motif, but ends up skipping town too as Patrick retreats from the story and René’s agent emerges as a last minute main character.

Aimlessly exploring your ideas is selfish, and assuming that viewers are on your wavelength is a mistake of over-confidence. The result can be an experience like Ballroom, which is odd and fascinating, but also sort of boring and in the end, masturbatory.