User reviews

I see this movie for the third time and can't prevent myself to notice the pure Claude Chabrol style in the critic of the rich people, especially in the province. But the ending is very bloody and surprising too. And in the mean time, since my last viewing, I saw PARASITES and I can't also prevent myself to see a thin line between the two features. If you have seen both features, you see what I mean. A pure delight.

I don't know much about Claude Chabrol's cinema. I've seen seven or eight of his dozens of films, but I remember them quite well, especially "Violette Nozière", "Le boucher" and "La rupture." Many years after these, "La cérémonie" is a serene work, the construction of a mature man who avoids making artificial judgments or explaining motivations of his characters, and tending traps to his audiences to keep them interested in what he's narrating. In an economic way, with well-chosen details he gives us everything needed in a story that deals with psychological disturbances and profound social disparity. I do not see this movie as a thriller nor do I see the connection with Alfred Hitchcock. While Hitchcock could almost ruin his forays into psychological landscapes (like Simon Oakland explaining Norman Bates' behavior in "Psycho" or placing clues that led to nowhere) and very rarely treated social issues, Chabrol prevents from recurring to psychological clichés and gives us subtle gestures to illustrate the "class struggle": the way the rich daughter returns the handkerchief to the post-office clerk after cleaning her filthy hands; the way the post-office clerk throws back an envelope to the bourgeois father. A few times Chabrol is not so subtle and he shows tension even between persons of the same class: the way the poor maid and the post-office clerk despise the miserly charity of an old Catholic couple, the way the rich father protests when giving his son a ride to school... Using this strategy, all the portraits are compassionate: the members of the rich family seem as pleasant as the two poor women when they share the little they have. When the climax arrives -the daughter of the bourgeois family discovers (part of) the maid's secret and, in return, the maid reveals she also knows something about the young woman- there is little else Chabrol can add, but only guide us to the conclusion. Maybe it is a much too obvious cut from the two women with no food at home, to the dinner table where the rich family finished a tasty meal. But that's all we need, in case we want an explanation of the way the two women act in the last scenes. All the elements are there for us to find answers or make interpretations if we want to do so. Not too many filmmakers today treat audiences as intelligent human beings and invite them to participate in the creative process adding the absent information, with the benefit of more than a century of cinematic tradition and –if we care- reflections on the way things are today in imbalanced societies. When "La cérémonie" was over, I was very pleased: not only did I watch a movie directed with brains, but I felt treated with respect by Claude Chabrol. Not frequent in much of today's cinema, a respectful film has great merit.

Claude Chabrol, one of the leading lights of the French New Wave, faded into a series of unimaginative throwaway flicks and obscurity (peppered with moments of worthiness such as Blood Sisters )until storming once again into the limelight with this claustrophobic psycho-thriller adaptation.

Like Heavenly Creatures and Fun this film is anchored around the destructively intense relationship between two female leads: the apparently insipid family housemaid Sophie (Sandra Bonnaire) and the sparky but cumulatively obnoxious postmistress Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). They both, it transpires, have potentially murderous secrets in their past involving the incineration of unwanted relatives (a child and a father). After a roundabout, deliberately vague "confession" to each other they erupt into childish laughter and it seems their relationship is cemented in their mutual utter lack of remorse.

There is no guilt felt by either woman for any of their crimes be it spite, neglect, theft, opening other's mail, arson or even murder. This is because, primarily though Jeanne's obsessive class angst and Sophie's obsessive paranois, they justify their stance and actions with an "us against them the world" self-righteous fervour. Jeanne describes all her - increasingly erratic - behaviour as "a good deed" and the equaly unstable Sophie believes her.

Every role is acted impeccably by some of the leading lights of French cinema. Along with Bonnaire and Huppert, arguably the best French actresses working today, Jacqueline Bisset plays the bourgeouse lady of the house for whom Jeanne works. She sees herself as a kind and understanding employer, providing glasses and a television for her taciturn domestic. However this gesture is interpreted as patronising by the illiterate Jeanne.

It's through minot details such as this that character exposition arises . The two principals are painted with tiny, finely detailed brushstrokes while everyone around them is painted with broad strokes. This intentional disparity brings us uncomfortably closer to the unhinged worlds of Jeanne and Sophie. Worlds which are revealed slowly, subtly and manipulatively.

La Ceremonie is based of a Ruth Rendell novel, "Judgement in Stone". Rendell is an archetypal British writer and I think that if La Ceremonie was a British film with British actors and a skilful British director it would have been a very different, darker and more disturbing movie. Having said this, Chabrol, with his distinctly French sensibilities and post nouvelle vague expertise brings other qualities to the story and makes this a remarkable film. Chabrol avoided darkness for the sake of it in favour of a highly sophisticated level of characterisation and build-up. The climax, however it was filmed, could never be anything less than shocking.

Ultimately la Ceremonie presents a pessimistic view of humanity: bleak, depressing and disturbing. Even Bisset's family don't come off well with their selfishly consumereist and blinkered middle class lifestyles.This and the high degree of audience manipulation means the film leaves a bad taste in the mouth but there's no denying it's an egregious work of art.

I love Sandrine Bonnaire. Not love her in the "sell my possessions and move to Paris" love her, but love her in movies. In this movie especially. Every second she is on the screen, I was riveted to her. Her somewhat jerky and stiff physical mannerisms, her plain but beautiful face. And even though from the start we sense that her character is odd, creepy even, we can also feel her almost childlike panic and pain early on when we learn she can't read. It's enormously moving, and it creates a sympathetic bond with her that complicates how we view the events that follow. I just love her, and that probably clouded my overall estimation of the film. That's not to say the film is otherwise weak. It's not. The exploration into the class conflict between the rich and their help was excellent. And so was the portrayal of the sociopathic personality, shifting from sweet smiles to cold-bloodedness in a process devoid of emotion. Chilling, especially so when the sociopath is a waifish beauty. It's a very good movie made great by Sandrine Bonnaire's performance.

I watched this on video without reading the plot summary on the video box (or the user comments here), and I highly recommend seeing it without knowing too much about the plot. It is a gripping, Hitchcockesque character portrayal that slowly builds great tension and a sense of foreboding. Let all the clever foreshadowing pique your imagination; the ending will be that much more effective.

A rich French family hires a mousy maid who has some peculiar traits. It starts out as a nice character study, with Bonnaire creating a sympathetic figure as a young woman who struggles with her illiteracy but is too ashamed to to let anyone know about it. In the last act, however, the film goes south, turning into a silly thriller. The ending is particularly contrived and ridiculous. Bonnaire is quite good as the maid, as is Bisset (speaking in French) as her kindly employer. In fact the whole cast is fine. Chabrol is regarded as the French Hitchcock, but he lacks the master's skill for building suspense with wit and subtlety.

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.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Chabrol's plan was similar in "la ceremonie" to that of "la rupture" (1971).Take a detective story (Charlotte Armstrong for "la rupture"(the balloon man),Ruth Rendell for "la ceremonie"(A judgement in stone),then give it a "social satire" flavor.He did it all right in Armstrong's case which was a pure thriller.Rendell's case is much more different,since she is a much superior writer than her late American colleague."A judgement in stone" is a captiving novel,very subtile,with interesting characters.The social critic is implicit,but sitting on the fence;the bourgeois are sympathetic people,their daughter's proposal to teach the maid to read is sincere.But Rendell makes us feel the gap between this cosy intellectual life in which you enjoy operas and the illiterate world of the maid where books are enemies. A lot of the psychological side eludes C.Chabrol.First of all,Sandrine Bonnaire was not the character.She's much too beautiful.(A young Shelley Winters would have fit the bill quite well!)In the novel,the heroine was some kind of village idiot with empty eyes who was not realizing her social condition.The same goes for I.Huppert,much too attractive to play her crude friend.Jean-Pierre Cassel and Jacqueline Bisset,on the other hand, are credible bourgeois and make up a bit for the weakness of the casting. Chabrol's work is not bad,by a long shot.But,while explaining what should be implied,his wholesale massacre loses some of its strength.

The upper-class owner of a gallery Catherine Lelievre (Jacqueline Bisset) hires the efficient and quiet maid Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire) for working in the family manor in the countryside of France. Her husband Georges Lelievre (Jean-Pierre Cassel), who is an opera lover, her daughter Melinda (Virginie Ledoyen) and her teenage son Gilles (Valentin Merlet) welcome Sophie and appreciate her work. Soon Sophie befriends the postmistress Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), who is a social outcast, and she encourages Sophie to rebel against her employers, but the maid stays submissive. However, Sophie is ashamed of a secret and feels uncomfortable in many situations, finding a way to hide her secret. When Georges tells to Sophie that he does not want Jeanne in his house, Sophie stands up against him. Melinda discovers her secret and Sophie blackmails her, but Melinda tells her parents what has happened. Georges fires Sophie and she returns to the house later with Jeanne on the rampage with tragic consequences.

"La Cérémonie" is one of the best films by Claude Chabrol and it is still impressive after watching many years after the release. The poignant story of class conflict, alienation and even evilness of two outcast working-class women stays in the mind of the viewer since it might happen to anyone that has a maid at home. The unexpected violent conclusion is probably the source of inspiration for Michael Haneke's "Funny Games" (1997). It is impossible to the viewer to be not affected by the despicable and cruel behavior of the repressed Sophie and the envious Jeanne. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Mulheres Diabólicas" ("Evil Women")

Note: On 21 April 1999, I saw this film again.

Note On 08 May 2017, I saw this film again.

Note: On 08 January 2025, I saw this film again.

I find it difficult to recommend this film to anyone, though I am certain some will enjoy it, as evidenced by the reviews on IMDb. First there are those who consider the director, Chabrol, to be the "French Hitchcock". Well, Hitchcock was the master of suspense. Does Chabrol display mastery in this film's portrayal of suspense? No, not even close, though the viewer might wonder throughout most of the film what possible point the film might have. I do not mean that in a necessarily negative way. Truly, the director's point of view, which might be revealed in the film's resolution, remains shrouded in mystery throughout, mostly because the film's story centers on two young women whose personalities appear to be monolithically hateful and purposeless, respectively.

Then there are the film's views on social/economic classes. Whatever message Chabrol hoped to deliver about disparity between the classes, and the moralities inherent in those distinctions, is undercut and betrayed by his depiction of the two main characters, who have no moral viewpoint. A much better film for exploring the morality of class strata is Lina Wertmuller's "Swept Away".

Maybe Chabrol's other films come closer to Hitchcock's canon of suspense, but this one shares non of the master's touches. Hitchcock's "Rope" has a pair of antisocial protagonists, but they have purpose and a point of view, and that film is an intellectual game of wits. "La Ceremonie" is anti-intellectual and its inspiration for rebellion comes via a criminal misanthrope and her witless sidekick.

Based on Ruth Rendell's Judgment in Stone, French auteur Claude Charbol transplanted this quintessentially English thriller about class and guilt to France, where he can fire more bullets at his favorite target - the French bourgeoisie. Without giving too much away, the story unfolds at a slow pace to reveal the class divisions and complex psychological issues that drive the characters' motivations. Centring on an illiterate maid, Sophie, who goes to desperate lengths to hide her "disability" from her employers, the wealthy Lelievre family, she eventually strikes a bond with the local postmistress who has mysterious grudge against her friend's employers. This film provided Chabrol with plenty of opportunities to criticize the disaffected bonhomie of the Levlievre family, but at times his presentation of some members of the Levlievres actually enlists our sympathy and therefore strikes a blow to the validity of his critique of French bourgeoisie values. Perhaps this was his intent to create more ambiguity than most psychological thrillers in this genre would allow. It's worth watching for the climax alone which has a delicious twist worthy of a mass-market Hollywood sequel.

Claude Chabrol has made his share of brilliant (and just decent) human thrillers in his time - human as in mostly deliciously and mostly focused on characters, possibly more than the central plot - but few have been as nasty and dark as this is, La ceremonie. You think it might go somewhere in its tragic direction, but it's not so simple. Chabrol is toying with class here (he was a lifelong Communist, though opting to make these Hitchcock-inspired films as opposed to the kinds of films Godard made), and has a story that is a slow-burn. Slow-burn, I mean, that it doesn't start out looking like anything special: a maid is hired by a wealthy French family in a village, with a family (mother, father, son, sometimes-around daughter) who are decent folks but, let's face it, rich. The maid is compliant and attentive and a great cook, and soon is befriended by the local post-master. It's suddenly becomes clear, as scenes go on bit by bit, that it's really an "us" vs "them" parable. And, as it turns out, it's something of a domestic horror film.

The two of them become thick as thieves- or, rather, the maid looks to the post-master like an older sister, rebellious and 'I-don't-give-a-bleep' attitude that she responds to like a magnet. It's not that Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is really a 'bad' person. That is, however, depending on what can be proved (she, along with Jeanne, a delightfully wicked and unconventional femme fatale played by Isabel Hupert, has some skeletons in the closet), and looking back at her character it's hard to tell who she really is. Is she really just a kind but illitterate girl taking odd jobs as a maid and housekeeper who gets put down a path that she can't escape but finds all too absorbing, or was she really bad from the start and she happened to find an outlet with Jeanne, a similar but more outgoing spirit? Chabrol leaves these questions about her in little slivers, like a cake of character left here, a little there.

It's tricky, because in the first half hour of the film, when it's mostly just Sophie at the house with the Lelievre family, she seems decent enough, if a little 'odd' and hooked on watching TV, no matter what it is. But when Jeanne enters the picture it starts to unravel bit by bit, until Sophie, after blackmailing the daughter of the household (both have things to hide but Melinda is blood so that trumps all), is let go, just says 'screw it' and does whatever she wants with her best friend. It's in this last reel that we see a sense of evil happen that is not the usual kind seen in most movies, almost akin to the kind of banal, pleasant if still psychotic sense of self, that one saw in Haneke's Funny Games. Except this time Chabrol has a lot more respect for his audience's sense of the story and characters, and the horror is amplified by how matter-of-fact it appears on screen while put to a Mozart opera in the background. It's maturity chills to the bone, and the surprise- really in the details of chronological order- is a stunner.

The performances help a great deal to get at Chabrol's intended mood. The family characters are made up of actors in a mode that is pleasant and cordial and understanding with the oft-subtext of rule of law and the father with his attitude towards Sophie (played by Jean-Pierre Cassel in just the right note of stern, commonplace superiority). In a way it helps that Bonnaire for the most part has a blank expression. She's never too sad, or too happy (save for around Hupert), or too angry. It's simply 'oh, that, yeah, I was fired, so on', so it makes sense, through the performance, that Sophie could be so impressionable. And it's thrilling to see Hupert in a role like this, where she gets to cut out and be as open as possible as an actor, tough and sarcastic, mean and rude, raw and emotional when Jeanne reveals the details about her son's death. It's once again really brave work from one of France's finest actresses.

The tone by the end of La ceremonie is a far cry from a happy ending. Chabrol may attempt at giving a sliver of bittersweet, or perhaps (without trying to spoil too much) shared tragedy on display. But even if it is pessimistic about the human condition, it's nevertheless masterfully shot, written, paced, scored, acted, and directed. It never shouts out that it's a controversial movie, but it speaks to the 'Down With the Ruling Class' mentality that never loses its power. Without assuming too much or being flashy, it's one of the best uncompromising French drama-thrillers of its time.

Taken as a psychological thriller, this is a marvellously well-made piece of work. Chabrol is a master of subtle storytelling, and even though you know exactly how the film will end right from the first few frames, he still manages to work up some suspense and creepiness. Taken as a "serious" social statement about class distinctions, it's a complete failure (the supposed "target" of the film, the bourgeois family, comes off as very likable). So take it as a thriller, and you'll be fine. (***)

The very clinical manner in which the French director chronicles the events leading to the tragic outcome where the people involved are steeped with contempt for the people they regard as outside their class, most unnerving realization. Mr. Chabrol demonstrates impeccable delicacy in showcasing actors' performances that represents different social strata and is able to elicit utmost empathy for them while dispensing a blistering appraisal on the bourgeois class and turning a critical eye towards the lower classes. But the film's most incredible achievement has to be the exemplary tastefulness in handling an otherwise very gruesome climax which aims to help cement judiciousness on the part of the audience rather than just dispense cheapjack thrills.

Strong support from Virginie Ledoyen, Valentin Merlet and Jean-Pierre Cassel, who makes up the three-fourths of the Lelievre household. All managed to make their upper crust characters to have such amiability that's sure gonna make their ultimate fate in the film, which is kind of a forgone conclusion, still feel a bit disconcerting despite their characters seeming a bit infuriating at times but that's mostly owing to the fact that the shelteredness of living in a position of privilege just robs them of any insight of how the lower-ninety percent goes through their lives.

But it's the characterizations of the three leading actresses, ever memorable in the sumptuous and understated quality that one should fervently anticipate. Jacqueline Bisset, whom I've only seen in a few roles during her youth (Day for Night, she's just divine in that one), still looks stunning as a woman in her mid-50s playing a maternal character that is quite a progressive one, a dignified bourgeois presence. And for Isabelle Huppert, whose work I've only seen are her latter roles in her career (I ❤ Huckabees I find being one of her funniest, The Piano Teacher being one of the nastiest) and this one I have to say is her finest yet in her filmography that I have barely explored. It's the exquisiteness on how she possesses the role of such a vile character which is more than enough for some to cherish checking this out and viewing the film multiple times. I bow down. Though this is the first time I've seen Sandrine Bonnaire, that scene where she's struggling to figure out the task given to her by her employers, the anguish was just disheartening to witness. Also the same could be said of that scene where the man-of-the-house George confronts her with a very serious matter while she's watching TV in her bedroom, those shifting glances seemingly conflicted as to whom/which would she turn her attention to. Unforgettable.

An appalling tragedy ever to befall upon anyone irregardless of their station in life.

(A-plus-plus)

How far can a chip on your shoulder take you?, could be this film's alternative title! What can I say... it's stylish, immaculately acted (the two lead actresses, Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert, are outstanding. But then, that's not saying much as we're talking about two of the world's most talented artists), the pacing is perfect, the plot unravels without ever a hitch or a loose end, the script is top class... but it has a quality of coldness that to me, makes so many of the Claude Chabrol films I see fall short of memorable. In its perfection, it's a heartless film. I don't mean that the story is heartless, but the execution of it. Perhaps, after all, it could have done with a few flaws, with a touch of imperfection, something which is the mark of a work of art created by human hands. Perhaps, Claude, the slickness has been mastered too well lately?

These are Mme Bisset's words to their servant Bonnaire who is paid a pittance to fetch and carry for this refined family on her day off when she is supposed to be visiting postwoman Huppert. Sophie just leaves anyway when Bisset's back is turned. Without descending into pastiche, Chabrol manages to portray the class struggle between the wealthy Lelievre family and the humble aupair and employee of La Poste in a highly realistic way. The Lelievres do not even know when they are putting on Sophie and Huppert just hates them because they are rich and she is poor, "Si j'avais une dixieme de ce qu'ils ont..." Such is modern France even today where the wealthy are despised and the poor wallow in envy and self-pity. Yes, it's obvious that matters will come to a head and the sting in the ending is superb and quire faithful the Ruth Rendell novel. What is especially interesting about this film is that you end up genuinely wavering between sympathy and dislike for both sides of the "class struggle". The Brittany landscape is portrayed quite bleakly to great effect setting the tone for this grim and superbly executed tale.

"La Cérémonie" tells the story of a young woman, Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is hired as a maid by the Lelièvre family. The film echoes the case of Christine and Lea Papin, two French maids who brutally murdered their employer's wife and daughter in 1933, as well as the 1947 play they inspired, "The Maids" by Jean Genet.

I have to say, this film did not hold my attention the way I wish it would have. Others have said it is a poor thriller, and I think that is actually fair. There are few thrills to speak of, and the source material (as mentioned above) is far more interesting than anything they tried to do here.

But, I must ask: what is up with the weird puppet music video? Is that a real video? There's no way they made that just for this movie, right?