Dancing

“I love old people. If I count them, Dancing is the third film I’ve written where the protagonist is an elderly person. There was Chemin du Passeur, a documentary portrait of my grandfather, then Deux Fois Rien, the story of a pigeon-fancying grandpa who spends his days on a park bench, waiting for time to pass. I’m fascinated by what old people have to say and because we don’t listen to them.
The idea for Dancing came from this: to make Suzanne and her octogenarian friends the heroines of a comedy, to give them a voice and tell their story. The story of slightly whimsical grannies delighted by the prospect of a less ordinary event in their week, where, ultimately, not much happens.

I wanted to make Suzanne and her friends—my fictional grannies—old ladies who go against the grain and act where they’re least expected.” Old but not completely out of touch, they're cruel to each other rather than admit that they're each other's only company.

So they get ready, they make themselves beautiful. At the hair salon, their weekly meeting place, they size each other up: it's a competition to see who has the most devoted partner, with the biggest car; they challenge each other, hurl insults at one another, only having kinder words for their grandchildren.

Old women who won't admit it, but who share much more than their loneliness.

— Marguerite Didierjean