La Cérémonie
| La Cérémonie | |
|---|---|
Film poster
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| Directed by | Claude Chabrol |
| Produced by | Marin Karmitz |
| Written by |
Claude Chabrol Caroline Eliacheff |
| Starring |
Isabelle Huppert Sandrine Bonnaire Jacqueline Bisset Jean-Pierre Cassel Virginie Ledoyen Valentin Merlet Serge Rousseau |
| Music by | Matthieu Chabrol |
| Cinematography | Bernard Zitzermann |
| Edited by | Louisette Hautecoeur |
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Release date
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August 30, 1995 (France) |
|
Running time
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112 minutes |
| Country | France / Germany |
| Language | French |
| Budget | €5,800,000 |
| Box office | $10,882,920 |
La Cérémonie is a 1995 film by Claude Chabrol, adapted from the novel A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. 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.
La Cérémonie tells the story of a young woman, Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire), who is hired as a maid by the Lelièvre family. The Lelièvres live in an isolated mansion in Brittany. The family consists of four members: Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) and Georges, the parents, who have no children together, but one each from previous marriages. Gilles is Catherine's and her ex-husband's son. He is a lonely teenager who loves reading and has a passion for arts in general. Melinda is Georges' and his late wife's daughter. She studies at a university and only spends the weekends at home, where she invites her boyfriend Jérémie. The household chores are excessive for Catherine – who owns her own art gallery – so she requires a maid's help and hires Sophie. Throughout the film Sophie avoids using the dishwasher, refuses to take driving lessons, buys fake eyeglasses, and has trouble giving a cashier the correct change. The viewer finds out later that Sophie is illiterate and has a history of violence since she is believed to have killed her handicapped father, or at least not to have rescued him from the fire she might have set in his house.
Once in the small village, Sophie meets Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), the postmistress, who occasionally works in a charity and reads a lot. However, Jeanne proves to be a bad influence on the maid since she is jealous and aggressive towards a lot of people, including the Lelièvres, whose mail she vandalises. She also has a violent history. The two friends meet regularly either for a charity project (that they end up ruining) or for a film; television being Sophie's main pastime. Sophie is treated rather nicely at the Lelièvres, who mean well towards her, but their patronizing attitude and the affection they have for each other create a feeling of jealousy and frustration both in Sophie and in Jeanne. This frustration reaches its climax when Georges fires Sophie for attempting to blackmail Melinda, who found out about her illiteracy. It is what triggers the climax of the film, which sees Sophie and Jeanne seize Georges’ shotguns and murder the family who were watching an opera on television.
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