Ballaciner is an essay by French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 author and Nobel laureate

Nobel Prize in Literature

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 J. M. G. Le Clézio with help from Gilles Jacob . It was originally published in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

in 2003.

Ballaciner was described by the Nobel committee as
“Ballaciner” is a French neologism meaning adopting an attitude of a strolling moviegoer.

Themes

"Ballaciner" is essentially an essay about cinema.The essay makes note of the films that have affected the author and makes the connection between literature and cinema. According to a review the author is "a self-declared cinephile, whose fascination for cinema has always gone hand in hand with his love of literature". Another reviewer noted that this essay "offers penetrating analyses of some of the 'disturbing, unforgettable dreams' conjured up on the cinema screen"