The basic story from the novel is retained as it charts the tension that escalates in a bourgeois household occupied by mother Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset), father Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel), daughter Melinda (Virginie Ledoyen), and son Gilles (Valentin Merlet) after their illiterate maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) strikes up a volatile friendship with the possibly unstable local postmistress, Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). However, the script by Chabrol and Caroline Eliacheff adds a far greater emphasis on television (as a sort of distracting balm for the upper class), echoing its use in his earlier film Masques (1987), and more significantly, echoes of one of France's most notorious murder cases, Christine and Léa Papin. The sisters' legendary slaughter of their employer and her daughter became a symbol of class exploitation for many and went on to inspire Jean Genet's play, The Maids, as well as such films as Sister My Sister and Murderous Maids. The influence in Chabrol's film is especially felt in the way Jeanne's personality becomes the dominant one and affects the psychology of Jeanne, resulting in an explosive new dynamic that turns out to be wholly unpredictable.
The tale of domestic unease was a perfect fit for Chabrol's knack for hiding social commentary in his commercial thrillers, and in this case he also had a top-caliber cast to help the message go down a little easier with people who might be seen as the film's targets. "I have heard rich industrialists saying that class warfare is over, but it's really not up to them," Chabrol remarked to The New York Times in a January 15, 1996 interview promoting the film's American release by New Yorker Films. "It's up to the workers to say it's over. And, in truth, the happier the industrialists are, the more worried I am. People's frustrations have to go somewhere, and if they don't go into dreams, they explode." He continued that train of thought to cinema itself, noting, "I sometimes think that if God exists, He must be a bit perverse because He has made humans slightly inferior to the level they need to live happily. That's why people go to the movies, to escape their lives. My idea is not to distract them. Rather, it's to try to clarify a thing or two."
Though the entire cast for this film is impressive, perhaps the juiciest role goes to Huppert in the fourth of seven feature collaborations with Chabrol. The two first worked together on one of his strongest late '70s efforts, Violette (1978), followed by the acclaimed dramas Story of Women (1988) and Madame Bovary (1991). "He doesn't idealize women in the ways people do in most films," Huppert said of Chabrol in the same newspaper interview. "He just shows them the way they are. Not victims, not fighters, somewhere in between. I like his way of portraying women." The rapport proved strong enough for them to reunite again in such films as The Swindle (1997), Merci pour le Chocolat (2000), and Comedy of Power (2006).
Chabrol's lengthy absence from English-speaking screens led to a warm reception for La Cérémonie, with Variety's September 4, 1995 review finding that "Claude Chabrol achieves a delicious intermingling of the benign and sinister that will be welcome in international arthouses." The film was subsequently named Best Foreign Film of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Circle, and Huppert picked up a César Award for Best Actress and, along with Bonnaire, was honored at the 1995 Venice Film Festival. So great was the film's impact that every single film Chabrol directed afterwards from The Swindle to his last film, Inspector Bellamy (2009), was given a significant art house release for English-speaking viewers, a happy third act for a filmmaker whose relevance remains just as strong today.
By Nathaniel Thompson
