Fencing thriller Balestra takes blind athletic ambition into the subconscious realm

With her sophomore feature Balestra, Canadian director Nicole Dorsey dives into the subconscious realm. Blending a variety of genres, from sports film, sci-fi to psychological thriller, the film follows a competitive fencer, Joanna (Cush Jumbo), at the end of her career. Trying to get an edge on the competition and make her way to Olympic gold, she begins using experimental technology that allows her to use lucid dreaming as part of her training session. Suddenly, she has thousands of new training hours at her disposal, but it’s something else that keeps her returning to the dream.

In the lucid dream, she meets her new sparring partner Elliot (Manny Jacinto), and it’s not long before she falls in love with him. The edges of his identity are frayed. Does he exist solely in her imagination? Can he read her thoughts? His words and actions are also occasionally unpredictable, shifting from violence to pleasure at a moment’s notice. His thoughts sometimes feel separate from Joanna’s but also occasionally feel like her worst instincts; that voice inside your head that tells you to give up or that you’re not good enough. It tells her what she wants to hear, but also voices her biggest fears. This virtual relationship puts a strain on her marriage with Raph (James Badge Dale), who also happens to be her coach.

Released during the Paris Olympics, the film stands out as an exciting sports thriller, but stands up more crucially as a treatise on ambition. What happens to the self when your identity is tied to what you do or what you aspire to? As Joanna approaches her retirement, fencing has deeply enmeshed itself into all aspects of her life. The looming crisis feels insurmountable and difficult to articulate. The film has sharp modernist edges and compositions that are dizzying and fragmented. 

We spoke with director Nicole Dorsey over Zoom about inspirations, sports and ambition.

Justine Smith: One of the central environments of the film is the landscape where Joanna goes while she’s dreaming. I see some hints of Norman McLaren’s Pas de Deux and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. What were some of your inspirations for creating that space?

Nicole Dorsey: It ranges because it’s such a genre-bender between thriller, psychological drama, sports and sci-fi. The obvious ones I first thought about when I read the script were Black Swan, Whiplash and Vanilla Sky. Altman’s Images, about a woman’s unravelling psychology, as well. Bergman’s Persona with the sort of mirroring personalities. I watched Lady Snowblood, Lone Wolf and Cub, and even Tokyo Olympiad, a doc from 1965. I’ve always loved how it captured sport and physicality. All of these were movies I watched or rewatched. From there, I worked with my DP Marie Davignon, who worked on Black Conflux. [Balestra was shot by Christophe Collette]. Same with Paul Col, my sound designer. We collaborated very early and talked a lot about how to let the aesthetic and heart of fencing inform how we approach the visuals. In the dream world, there’s this sort of breathy, ballet-esque floaty world mixed with the sharp, clean and precise world of reality. It’s the two sides of fencing.

JS: One of my favourite scenes that I found quietly unsettling was when, in a dream, Elliot confronts Joanna and asks her, “Why do you want this? Why do you want any of this?” As someone who works in a competitive field, filmmaking, are these questions you’ve asked yourself?

Nicole Dorsey: 1,000% I think that was one of the big reasons I connected to this story, because I find it extremely universal. It’s in the niche-world of fencing, but I think, as an athlete, an artist or businessperson, anyone in a more Americanized culture, we’ve been presented with this idea that we must chase greatness and greatness is attached to our value as a human. It’s not reality, but it’s what we’ve been sold. 

JS: Speaking of the way you utilize fencing, can you talk a bit about how you use elements of the fencing costume, particularly masks, in the film? 

Nicole Dorsey: There’s something so eerie about these costumes, and hiding behind the mask especially. I like to talk about Jungian theories as I work with my actors, and being in the shadow self. So putting on the mask is sort of an interesting symbol to use as you’re shooting. There’s a mystery to it. It lends itself to a thriller genre when you’re like, “Who is truly behind the mask?” On a production level, it makes shooting stunt sequences a lot easier when you’re slipping in professionally trained fencers. It’s spacey, too. It lends itself to the sci-fi element as well. It’s peculiar.

JS: What is your approach to working with actors? The role of Joanna is very challenging because she’s in the midst of a deep identity crisis. She’s near the end of her career and her whole sense of self is wrapped up in the fencing world. 

Nicole Dorsey: I use Myers-Briggs psychology a lot. I like to share that with actors to help create nuanced, challenging storytelling with characters. I want to ensure that when the characters are in trauma or in their shadow self, they are behaving in a way that is grounded in and isn’t just convenient for the plot. We talked a lot about that line of hero and villain, how making decisions doesn’t make you a bad person. We definitely talked a lot about that and how Joanna moves through the world — how her pursuit for greatness clouds a lot of her decision-making.

JS: Has making the film changed the way you view the Paris Olympics? 

Nicole Dorsey: The Olympics is a very complex thing that maybe I won’t get into too much, but I think it’s a heightened version of this pursuit of greatness and value because you’re representing an entire nation. So the stakes are incredibly high. I appreciated more so making this movie how high the stakes truly are and how high the pressure is on these athletes and what that means for them in their home life as well. If you look at the athletes at the Olympics, when I see most of them have Olympic rings tattooed on their body, it’s clear their identity is very much enmeshed with the Games, and I can only imagine how difficult that is when you’re no longer part of the Games and how that changes your day-to-day purpose.

Balestra is now playing in Montreal theatres.

---

For our latest in film and TV, please visit our Film & TV section.