Review of La Ceremonie

Introduction

Claude Chabrol`s 1995 thriller is a typically negative view of mankind.

Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) employs Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) as a maid, not knowing that her new employee has a secret that she`s ashamed of - she`s illiterate. Big deal, I hear you say, but it bothers Sophie. She finds a kindred spirit and friend in Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the bolshie postmistress who encourages Sophie to stand up to her bourgeois employers. Catherine and her husband soon find themselves in trouble as Sophie brings Jeanne into the house.

Celebrated as France`s premiere director of thrillers, Claude Chabrol takes a delight in telling nihilistic little tales involving pointless violence and murder. The screenplay for La Ceremonie was by Chabrol and Caroline Eliacheff, based on the Ruth Rendell novel A Judgement In Stone.

Watching the movie, you get the impression Chabrol despises the French middle-class (of which frankly he must be a member). He sets them up to take a fall, but inevitably his working-class perpetrators have to pay the price of their violent outbursts. Huppert`s character is a nasty piece of work.

Video

The movie is presented as 16:9 anamorphic, windowboxing the OAR of 1.66:1. Other distributors should take note of this - it`s a much more satisfactory way of presenting 1.66:1 than the usual practice of letterboxing the picture within a 4:3 frame.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0.

Features

The movie comes with English subtitles throughout (as the movie is in the original language). Also subtitled is the "Making Of La Ceremonie" which is hosted by genial gremlin Chabrol.

Conclusion

A cold movie. Bonnaire and Huppert are chillingly dysfunctional human beings in this character driven thriller. A friendship grows between them against the wishes of Bonnaire`s employer (Jacqueline Bisset), culminating in the brutally meaningless conclusion of the movie. Not having read Ruth Rendell`s original novel (or seen the 1986 adaptation), I can`t say how far this veers away from the novel. All I can say is it`s a bleak tale with a violent end.