La Cérémonie (1995)

I have to start writing less for Letterboxd and maybe keeping anything too long on the blog. I had decided earlier in the year to try and not add as much to the blog this year, but Letterboxd is intended more for a few sentences, not multi-paragraph reviews.

The review

Sophie would probably have been the Lelievres’ precious little maid, tasked to cook their meals, tidy their house, see to their every need, and keep her quaint itty bitty room with the discarded secondary television set if Jeanne had not entered her life, inspiring her to "act out" when the family makes her mad (or as Jeanne felt, "taking up for yourself").

 She can’t read, is easily manipulated, says very little, stays on task, etc. Befriending the postal worker, Jeanne, might have been the worst thing fate could have handed Sophie. Who’s to say? I can’t imagine serving the entitled Lelievre family, but, still, what happens to them, obviously, I could never condone. Chabrol concocts quite a melodrama, letting us into the comfortable, happy Lelievre family dynamic. They never argue. They hug. There is nary a sign that angst or trouble encroaches on their domicile. Without Sophie, they would be okay. Their patience and tolerance allowed Sophie to stay perhaps longer than Georges would have allowed if his wife, Catherine, hadn’t vouched for her, considering the search for a maid was difficult. That reason kept Sophie on as the maid. So Sophie without Jeanne just did what the family wanted, except actually get glasses (it wasn’t eyesight, it was illiteracy) or driving lessons. With Jeanne, Sophie becomes destructive. Sophie watched as Georges cleaned his shotgun. Chabrol raises the possibility that Sophie was responsible for a fire that killed her father. Chabrol raises the possibility that Jeanne caused her daughter to hit a stove. These two certainly did not need shotguns in their hands. Throughout the film, the family makes little remarks about these two…calling them loonies, poking fun at Jeanne’s car, wondering why Sophie just left to be with Jeanne instead of tending to her guests during Melinda’s birthday party (it was also Sophie’s birthday). 

At the end, how Sophie and Jeanne just gun down the family (and books), trashing the house, then coldly talk about how to cover it all up (Jeanne remarks that Melinda won’t need the cassette player Jeremy got her); this certainly chilled me to the bone. It is quite clear that killing people wasn’t something new. It was very easy. It was as if apart, in their separate lives, they could be dangerous but maybe not to the level they are together. Chabrol, though, decides to implicate Sophie despite her efforts to get away with the cold-blooded murder. And Jeanne’s car is her downfall. Not just one blast to the body, but multiple gunshots, doing so with no emotion…it looked very easy. Jeanne’s cassette player, found in her car, hit by a van carrying the priest and charity volunteer who fired her from helping them.  And voices and shotgun blasts on the cassette recording of the opera while the credits roll as Sophie listens in the background while police and paramedics remove Jeanne’s body from the wreck. 

The class difference isn’t just specified with how the rich family acts towards Sophie, but it was also when we get a look in Jeanne’s house as opposed to the sprawling estate and manor of the Lelievres. Eating picked mushrooms cooked over a modest stove in a little kitchen right after Sophie had prepared this impressive meal for Melinda’s birthday party while the guests quoted Nietzsche. I get that the “unintentional condescension” of the rich to the poors through “don’t worry, we’ll help you with that since we have the resources and you don’t” attitude didn’t warrant being shot-gunned while the opera plays on the Telly, that class distinction might leave viewers to chew on the fat and consider how attitudes towards those less fortunate and secure than you might feel. 

I watch a lot of horror movies, but that ending shocked me about as much as anything Rob Zombie has thrown at me during his film career.