La Cérémonie
In Claude Chabrol’s tight and beautifully contained thriller, a newly hired maid for a rich countryside family befriends a post-office clerk who encourages her to rebel against her employers.
The Lelièvre family (Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Cassel) lives in an attractive middle-class house near a Breton village. Quiet and introverted, Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire), the new maid, is efficient, and secretive. She befriends Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the local postmistress, and the two girls break into the Lelièvre house. Their alliance becomes a wild revolt, beyond good and evil. Adapted from ‘A Judgment in Stone’ by Ruth Rendell, the film benefits from the director’s strong attention to social and psychological detail. Virginie Ledoyen who plays the daughter of the household, is a discovery; Bisset returns to form; and Isabelle Huppert, unusually vivacious, is shocking. (Subtitles)
France 1995 Claude Chabrol 111m
