When Georges tells Sophie that he does not want Jeanne in his house, Sophie stands up to him. It's worth watching for the climax alone which has a delicious twist worthy of a mass-market Hollywood sequel.Looking for some great streaming picks?
Certificate: GP Sandrine Bonnaire is the one giving the grand Huppertian performance in this.First saw this film over a decade ago when I was just starting my "adult" life, and I appreciated it then mainly for its ingeniously novel sources of suspense, like trying to prevent someone from finding out you can't read, etc (also, that terrifying, uncanny valley puppet show). The rich family treat Sandrine Bonnaire's maid with such casual disdain and dehumanising pity that it's no wonder she's drawn to the chaos of Huppert's character (her total opposite), and it's no wonder the film ends the way it does.second view and I'm still nowhere near this - but after seeing only two of his films (and this one twice) I'm totally obsessed/in awe of the way Chabrol makes movies.All I'm saying is that I would do anything Isabelle Huppert encouraged me to do, and that includes murdering an entire family.class struggle being portrayed through methodic structuralism. Review by Tulio_Kalife. The upper-class owner of a gallery, Catherine Lelievre, hires the efficient and quiet maid Sophie to work in the family manor in the French countryside. La Cérémonie is a 1995 crime drama film by Claude Chabrol, adapted from the novel A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell.
Class struggle ensues and when Isabelle Huppert's unpredictable Jeanne enters the fray as a friend to Sophie, the tension ratchets up to its brilliantly staged and bitter end. After long absence, a man returns to his hometown only to find his best friend has become an alcoholic.
765 films watched. theyve got it all. 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. She finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers. This… jack uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 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. A well respected man residing in what's left of old-Beijing attempts to exonerate his son from his wrongdoings with his own methods and beliefs. A must see French classic.Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert take turns stealing scenes for two hours (yes, someone is capable of stealing a scene from Huppert, I didn’t believe it either). id have the life i wanted, instead of just the opposite.”Claude Chabrol makes suspense films that feel unconventional even while they do everything we expect suspense films to do (and cherish them for doing).
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. Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire both gave incredible performances. not only through the idea of popular and erudite culture, not only through the illiteracy here which is not a problem in a pragmatic way, but a question of belittlement, not only through material privileges, not only through conversational power relations, but through the civic bourgeois manners being given as a holistic system in which morals are absolute and untouchable.
1942, Nanjing (Nanking). 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. 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. Favorites: Wendy and Lucy (2008), La Ceremonie (1995), Ratcatcher (1999), Jacquot (1991). Sophie soon befriends the postmistress Jeanne, who is a bad egg and encourages Sophie to rebel against her employers, but the maid stays submissive. Was this review helpful to you? their biggest worry is what color car to buy. A widow's best friend tries to find her a new husband, but the ad posted in the newspaper attracts more than one possibility.