A balcony, that liminal space where thoughts soar, gazes stretch, and conversations may flow freely, is central to Sudden Rain. In this film, the balcony on the 19th floor of a Marseille high-rise becomes more than a physical space for two Chinese expatriate women; it also serves as a metaphorical and emotional landscape. Suspended between outdoors and indoors, the mountains and the sea, it mirrors the protagonists’ own in-betweenness: between their homeland of China and their adoptive country of France, hovering between quarter-life and middle-age.

Visually, the presence of the women is fragmented. Often placed in the mid-ground, framed against distant mountains and neighbouring buildings, they appear partially enclosed by the half-open doors and windows of the balcony. Initially, one is physically present, while the other is reflected in the glass behind her—trapped off-screen, faintly echoed. Even as they eventually converge in the same physical space, parallelling a growing emotional closeness, the mise-en-scène remains an intricate web of obstructions—pot plants, chairs, balcony railings—dividing and compartmentalising their bodies; or, darkness obscures them. This contrasts sharply with a clear, unobstructed view of the Notre-dame de la Garde basilica, a constant presence overseeing the city from its hilltop perch.

The film juxtaposes the protagonists’ enclosed, fragmented existence with the vast openness just beyond their reach. As a boat sails toward Corsica, their physical and emotional stasis resonates with the concept of “45-degree life”, a term describing Chinese youth caught between relentless overwork (“involution”) and the passive resistance of “lying flat”—a state of withdrawal from societal demands, yet not a complete surrender. 

As the interview between the two women morphs into an impromptu therapy session, the fluid exchange of roles reveals layers of their 45-degree limbo. The interviewee, once an engineer, has abandoned her steady career in hopes of becoming a climbing instructor, only to find herself too fearful to even climb; life is like “some kind of cycle that could repeat itself again and again”, she says. The interviewer is trapped in an indeterminate waiting game—unable to give up on either her boyfriend’s yearslong visa application or their strained relationship. Both women are caught in inertia, unwilling to carry on with the rat race, yet equally unwilling to stop trying. 

Their conversation, somehow a cathartic release, allows them to shed their liminal, fragmented existence. In the film’s final moments, by venturing into the open space of the ground floor, their bodies roam freely—no longer obstructed, fully present. While breaking free from physical boundaries potentially liberates them from the stasis of a 45-degree life, Sudden Rain poignantly explores how bodies equally incarnate and are shaped by the spaces they inhabit—both in terms of cinematic and actual space.