La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 22, 2023

Claude Chabrol's "La Ceremonie" (1995) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the release include new program with filmmaker Bong Jong Ho; archival interviews with Claude Chabrol and cast members; vintage trailer for the film; and more. In French, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire, Vagabond, À Nos Amours) is interviewed for a job she desperately needs. The job is simple -- cleaning and cooking in a lavish home somewhere in the French countryside -- but Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset, Day for Night, The Deep) wants to make sure that this time she hires an experienced maid who will please her husband Georges (Jean-Pierre Cassel, Army of Shadows, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie). The last one they had was nice, but wasn’t experienced, and eventually drove Georges crazy.

Despite having some minor reservations, Catherine hires Sophie. She shows her the house and then introduces her to Georges and the children, Melinda (Virginie Ledoyen, In All Innocence, Bon Voyage) and Gilles (Valentin Merlet). After a couple of days, while having dinner everyone agrees that Sophie is very professional, simply perfect for the house.

Things get complicated when Catherine hands Sophie a shopping list. She reacts in a way that at first surprises and then confuses everyone - she panics and later on confesses that she can’t see well. When Georges offers to pay for an eye exam, she panics again. Eventually, she agrees to go to the nearby town and see a specialist.

But instead of seeing the eye specialist Georges has suggested and agreed to pay for, Sophie spends the entire day walking around and exploring the town. In a small deli she eventually meets Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert, Ma mere, Les soeurs Brontë), a friendly and very energetic woman who works in the local post office. The two agree to meet again.

The more time the two women spend together, the more they realize that they have plenty in common. They have both dealt with personal tragedies but managed to rebuild their lives. Both also make barely enough to make ends meet.

Eventually, Georges warns Sophie to stop bringing Jeanne to the house. One of many reasons why he does not like seeing her around is the fact that has routinely been opening his mail. But Sophie refuses, and thus unleashes a tragic chain of events.

La Ceremonie is a near perfect film by the French Hitchcock, director Claude Chabrol, a critic turned filmmaker who in the early 1950s contributed to the famous film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma together with Jacques Rivette, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, and Jean-Luc Godard. Inspired by Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, Le beau Serge is nowadays widely considered to be the first film of the French New Wave.

Based on Ruth Rendell’s novel "A Judgment in Stone”, La Ceremonie is a film with two different identities. Part of it targets class inequality and argues that wealth can effectively detach one from reality. There is no specific political talk in it, but Chabrol isn’t shooting blanks -- the film satirizes the French bourgeois lifestyle and cultural practices very well.

On the other hand, La Ceremonie also works great as a thriller. It builds the tension gradually and then climaxes with a terrific final act that changes the entire complexion of the story. Amongst the many great thrillers Chabrol directed throughout the years, La Ceremonie is arguably his most accomplished one, making its point in spectacular fashion.

The cast is universally excellent, with Huppert and especially Bonnaire playing their characters with superb confidence. Bisset is also terrific as the naive art dealer, who together with her husband can’t see the dark clouds ahead of them.

*In 1995, La Ceremonie won Volpi Cup and Pasinetti Award for Best Actress (Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire) at the Venice Film Festival.

La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, La Ceremonie arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.

The following text appears inside the leaflet that is provided with the release:

"This new digital master was created from the 35mm original camera negative, which was scanned in 4K resolution by MK2 at Eclair Classics. The original 2.0 surround soundtrack was remastered from the magnetic tracks."

The 4K makeover of La Ceremonie is very disappointing. While the visuals look very healthy, the entire film is very poorly regraded and the native qualities of the original cinematography are lost. As a result, La Ceremonie now looks like a digital project, rather than a properly restored 35mm film. In some outdoor panoramic footage the grading is so awful and so odd it is hard to imagine that the person that finalized it had seen La Ceremonie before the 4K makeover was initiated. Sadly, this is hardly surprising because there are many such recent makeovers. (See Madame Claude, Manila in the Claws of Light, Lucky Luciano, and The Damned). One partially good news here is that in darker areas the dynamic range of the visuals does not fully collapse. It can be underwhelming, but it is not effectively destroyed. Naturally, all of this is extremely disappointing because the raw files appear to be of exceptionally high-quality.

In 2012, we reviewed this Region-B release of La Ceremonie. It was sourced from an even older master that was prepared during the DVD era. While it has several obvious limitations, it produces a more satisfying presentation of the film.

(Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The audio track is very healthy. All exchanges are very clear, crisp, and easy to follow. There is a little bit of music in the film, but the soundtrack does not produce any memorable dynamic contrasts. Stability is outstanding.

La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Bong Jong Ho - in this exclusive new program, Bong Jong Ho (Okja) explains what makes Claude Chabrol's films unique, why he admires them, and how they have impacted his work. In Korean, with English subtitles. (13 min).

• The Making of "La Caremonie" - this archival program takes a closer look at the production of La Ceremonie. It features clips from interviews with Claude Chabrol, Isabelle Huppert, and Sandrine Bonaire. In French, with English subtitles. (19 min).

• Selected-Scene Commentary - presented here are five scenes from La Ceremonie with optional audio commentary by Claude Chabrol. In French, with English subtitles. (30 min).

• Isabelle Huppert and Claude Chabrol: Crossed Portraits - in this archival program, produced by Jean Pierre Devillers, Isabelle Huppert and Claude Chabrol discuss their professional relationship as well as some of the ways in which the two approached the projects they collaborated on. The program aired on French television on December 23, 1998. In French, with English subtitles. (23 min).

• Sandrine Bonnaire - in this recent interview, Sandrine Bonnaire discusses her collaboration with Claude Chabrol on La Ceremonie and the director's working methods. The interview was conducted in 2020. In French, with English subtitles. (13 min).

• Caroline Eliacheff - in this archival interview, co-screenwriter Caroline Eliacheff explains why some crimes reveal a lot about the social environment in which they are committed. In French, with English subtitles. (10 min).

• Offscreen Sound in "La Ceremonie" - in this episode from the Criterion Channel series Observations on Film Art, professor Jeff Smith discusses some of Claude Chabrol's favorite deceiving techniques. In French, with English subtitles. (10 min).

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for La Ceremonie. In French, with English subtitles. (1 min).

• Leaflet - an illustrated leaflet featuring author and critic Sarah Weinman's essay "Domestic Disturbances" as well as technical credits.

La Cérémonie Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

La Ceremonie is a masterpiece of suspense, arguably one of Claude Chabrol's best films. Together with La femme infidèle and L'enfer, it is also one of my favorite films the late French filmmaker directed. Criterion's release introduces a recent 4K makeover of La Caremonie that I was eager to view. Unfortunately, I found it unconvincing because it dramatically alters the film's native appearance.