Walking a Tightrope (Les équilibristes)

The story of this film was allegedly based on a true story witnessed by the director Nico Papatakis during his filmmaking collaboration with the controversial and much-lionized monstre sacrée Jean Genet. In the story, Marcel Spadice (Michel Piccoli) is a famous writer with a criminal background and a penchant for handsome men. From time to time, he induces an attractive female admirer to arrange for him to be introduced to nice, talented young men who happen to be sufficiently handsome to interest him. At other times, the endless effort to woo these men (who are most often heterosexual) grows wearying, and he goes to the train station to pick up soldiers looking for some easy money and a night's lodging. In this film, the writer has grown enamored with a young circus laborer (Lilah Dadi) who wants to move up in the world, literally, by becoming a tightrope walker. Marcel cadges an introduction, and for a time sponsors the young man's training. However, when the boy suffers an accident which renders him unfit for his chosen vocation, Marcel loses interest in him and takes up with another young man.