... you can learn from:
La Cérémonie (1995)
Jeanne: They're pathetic. What do they know? They've got it all. Their biggest worry is what color car to buy. Or which cousin stole half the inheritance. I'd be happy with a tenth of what they have. I'd have the life I wanted, instead of just the opposite.
It's a top shelf day for Criterion releases -- I already told you earlier that one of this year's finest films The Eight Mountains is hitting blu today. But that's not all! This 1995 Claude Chabrol masterpiece quoted above is also "entering the collection." (Sidenote: that phrase has begun to sound so provocotive to me. "Entering the collection." I'll enter your collection, et cetera.) Unbelievably I'd never seen it until about a week and a half ago when my review copy of Criterion's disc came in and HOLY SHIT. This movie is a banger. It's one of Isabelle Huppert's greatest performances up in here, and a horror show that totally sneaks up on you like nothing else I've ever seen.
It is tempting to compare this to Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which came out two years later -- indeed I wonder what people who saw La Cérémonie first thought of the comparison. I'd hesitate to guess they found Haneke's take a bit histrionic in comparison (and I say that with love -- "histrionic" isn't a bad angle for the material.) But the poison of Chabrol's film, subtle and insidious, is deeply unsettling in its own special way. Anyway this movie is very much recommended to those of you who've never seen it! And if you have seen it tell me your thoughts in the comments, please.
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2 comments:
I was a little dumbfounded by La Ceremonie. A definite slow burner, though the burn is more acidic than hot. The two leads took deadpan expression to a whole new level.
If you haven't read any Ruth Rendell — this comes from her novel A Judgment in Stone — you've been missing out, as quite a few of hers are like this. Chabrol did another one, The Bridesmaid, and she also wrote Live Flesh, although the book and the film are fairly different.
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