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IMDb > La cérémonie (1995)
La cérémonie
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La cérémonie (1995) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
7.5/10   2,582 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 4% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Claude Chabrol
Writers:
Ruth Rendell (novel)
Claude Chabrol (writer) ...
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Contact:
View company contact information for La cérémonie on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
20 December 1996 (USA) more
Genre:
Crime | Drama | Thriller more
Plot:
Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for the upper-class family Lelievre, hides her illiteracy under the cloak of a perfect household and obedience... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
7 wins & 8 nominations more
User Comments:
Stark, naturalistic shocker, brilliantly presented more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
A Judgement in Stone
Biester (Germany)
Blutiger Engel (Germany)
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Runtime:
112 min
Country:
France | Germany
Language:
French
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.66 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The film Jaqueline Bisset and Valentin Merlet watching is Les noces rouges (1973). more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Biester müssen sterben (2009) more

FAQ

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful:-
Stark, naturalistic shocker, brilliantly presented, 31 January 2002

In this character study of two hateful middle-aged women (not so middle-aged in the movie, however, as in the novel by Ruth Rendell) we are made to fathom the bad that may befall the good.

Claude Chabrol's direction is clean, crisp and uncluttered--which isn't always the case, witness his Madame Bovary (1991), which is a bit too leisurely and L'Enfer (1993) which muddles a whole lot. Maybe it's the editing. Anyway this is more like his quietly brilliant Une affaire de femmes (1988) with a fine script and striking performances by Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert, handsomely supported by Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Pierre Cassel and the very pretty Virginie Ledoyen.

Bonnaire plays Sophie, an intense taciturn woman harboring dark secrets, whom the Leliévres have hired to cook and keep house at their country home. Bisset is Catherine Leliévre and Cassel her husband. They exist in bourgeois heaven avec matrimonial bliss with two teenagers, a family so closely knit and so charmingly together that they watch a two-part production of Mozart's Don Giovanni on TV, just the four of them cosily on the couch.

Well, this sort of unobtainable happiness doesn't sit well with Jeanne (Huppert) who is a lowly postal clerk living alone whose past includes the (accidental?) killing of her four-year-old daughter. Jeanne takes a fancy to the Leliévre's strange new maid with the idea of showing her something besides work. They strike up a fateful friendship that we know is leading to something horrible.

Huppert is as good as I've seen her, which is very good indeed. She is particularly striking here in an uncharacteristic role as a spiteful, working class woman with a heart of vengeance against anybody better off than she is. There is just a touch of sly irony in her performance suggesting that she is having a particularly good time playing the nasty. Bonnaire's stark performance as the unbalanced and humorless, reclusive Sophie will remain etched in your brain. Apart they are like inert, harmless chemicals. Together they catalyze one another and become brazen and explosive.

The story, filled with little foreshadowing of the tragedy to come, gilds the lily of our tristesse by making the Leliévres so very, very nice. We are reminded of the violent hatred by the proletariat toward the privileged classes, in this case acted out by two loonies against an innocent, but representative family, echoing not only the Russian Revolution but even more so the French Revolution, now two hundred years old.

What I am trying to figure out why this is called La Cérémonie. Maybe it is a ceremony of execution.

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