LA CEREMONIE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Claude Chabrol's new thriller is not
actually very thrilling. It has a nice slow and
believable build to its climax, but the climax is
curiously understated and unaffecting. Chabrol
would probably like to have made a strong statement
about class warfare, but his main character is much
more understandable than sympathetic. There is not
much in LA CEREMONIE to fire the blood of the
viewer and the low-key direction eventually robs
the film of impact. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) The
spoiler section following the review contains what
could conceivably be a fair-sized spoiler, so
beware.
New York Critics: 15 positive, 1 negative, 3 mixed
Director Claude Chabrol's work has in fact been compared frequently to that of Alfred Hitchcock, but he lacks the British director's efficiency and compactness of story-telling. Take away a few subtle implications of quiet class warfare and this is a story that could have been done every bit as effectively as a half-hour episode on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS in the late 1950s. Given the screentime of LA CEREMONIE, Hitchcock could have told a story by wide margins both more thoughtful and more entertaining.
The setting is a small but modern village on the northwest coast of France. Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is a mysterious woman who hires herself out as a maid to an upper-middle-class family. Her employers are the bland Catherine and Georges Lelievre (Jacqueline Bisset and Jean Pierre Cassel). Given their personalities, Sophie is understandably very standoffish with her new employers. She seems to prefer retreating to the solitude of her room to having any beyond the required contact with the Lelievres. Instead she watches the television. What nobody realizes is that Sophie has a rather surprising secret, one that she protects with surprising dexterity. The little human contact she does make is instead with Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert) the clerk at the village post office whose mild if slightly surly demeanor hides a lot of rage for the more wealthy around her. This is a French film, but it fits well with the new American stereotype that post office workers have an insidious side. Sophie and Jeanne share a common distaste for life in the village in general and of the Lelievres in specific. Chabrol hints at more than friendship and the beginnings of a physical relationship between the two. Each finds the other a sounding board for her rage and together they just might do the unthinkable things that they never would do without each other.
Basing the film on the novel A JUDGMENT IN STONE by Ruth Rendall, Chabrol very slowly and deliberately paces the film though not really adding a lot to the depth of his characters. We see a good deal of Georges and Catherine, but we never get to know very much about them except that they are most comfortable with each other and with their two children. They have a hard time being very warm toward an intruder in their house, even if the intruder has been hired by them. While they seem to be favored with wealth, their attitudes toward others outside the family is stand-offish and self-absorbed at best. Chabrol takes a few cheap shots at the family and their class. At one point Jeanne is faced with having Sophie as a house guest for an extended period of time. She has lived comfortably on her post office salary but with a second mouth to feed she comments that it will be hard for them to eat. Chabrol immediately cuts to the Lelievres eating a somewhat fancy meal.
In the final analysis, this is really not a lot deeper or more impressive a film than various American films in which the hired hand turns out to be more than a handful. While the conflict is not as one-sided as that in films like THE TEMP and THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, LA CEREMONIE is really not far from that genre. The denouement, when it comes, has a few logic problems. This film has done well by the critics, but it is seems to have its problems. I rate it a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER... SPOILER...
If the recorder was running all evening, recording the opera, would the family have been talking over the opera, essentially ruining the recording? At what point did the recorder come off record mode with the people present not realizing it?
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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