1199 La cérémonie

[swo17]

La cérémonie



Claude Chabrol's forty-ninth feature stands as the crowning achievement of his prolific career—a coolly riveting study of class dynamics, the psychology of crime, and the sordid secrets lurking beneath the veneer of everyday life. A fascinatingly enigmatic, César Award–winning Isabelle Huppert is the chaotic yin to Sandrine Bonnaire's tightly coiled yang. They are, respectively, a small-town postal worker and a maid to a wealthy family, a pair of outsiders who form a mysterious alliance that gradually, almost imperceptibly, goes haywire. With a master's control of sound, editing, and suspense, Chabrol constructs a tour de force of sustained tension that delivers each brilliant shock with ice-pick precision.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Selected-scene commentary featuring Claude Chabrol
• New introduction by filmmaker Bong Joon Ho
• Making-of program
• Archival interviews with Chabrol, actor Sandrine Bonnaire, and cowriter Caroline Eliacheff
• Episode of the Criterion Channel series Observations on Film Art about the use of offscreen sound
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by crime-fiction and true-crime authority Sarah Weinman

[ryannichols7]

gotta admit it looks silly on the extras front when Arrow released 9 of Chabrol's films and they all got more impressive slates in comparison. and this is the "big" Chabrol title

[swo17]

and this is the "big" Chabrol title

...from the '90s. His vital run from the late '60s to early '70s remains elusive (not to mention Les Bonnes Femmes, Le Cri du hibou, La Demoiselle d'honneur, and others)

[vsski]

While I agree the extras leave a lot to be desired, I’m just happy that they did decide to release it after sitting on it for so long, rather than prioritizing another Frownland or Daddy Longlegs.

Now if someone can finally get the Helene cycle released on Blu, than finally Chabrol is well represented (although from what I remember rights issues are continuing to hold this up).

Edit: swo beat me to it!

[domino harvey]

Criterion really being dragged kicking and screaming into releasing this based on the extras. Remember, they already passed on this once before for the HVe release (which means they could have released the other two films as one of their triple film sets, at least)

[ryannichols7]

and this is the "big" Chabrol title

...from the '90s. His vital run from the late '60s to early '70s remains elusive (not to mention Les Bonnes Femmes, Le Cri du hibou, La Demoiselle d'honneur, and others)

yes sorry I should've noted that - though the leads of this film have probably overinflated that rep at this point. genuinely shocked there's no new interview with Huppert at the least

Criterion really being dragged kicking and screaming into releasing this based on the extras. Remember, they already passed on this once before for the HVe release (which means they could have released the other two films as one of their triple film sets, at least)

honestly surprised it got a November release, especially when Eustache, Rohmer, and Godard were on the table. it was inevitable to contain either a filmmaker introduction or an Imogen Sara Smith video essay, the only two forms of new extras they commission nowadays*

(*-yes, I know this year has more new scholarly commentaries than last, but let me have this)

[barryconvex]

Jesus, finally....I'm happy to get this any way I can. My HVE disc is cracked and unplayable. Top 5 Chabrol for me.

[colinr0380]

Whilst the Stéphane Audran period of Chabrol is the key one, La cérémonie was his big late period return to prominence (at least in the UK: it is one of the very few Chabrol films to have appeared on UK television) with Isabelle Huppert becoming a similar muse figure for this period, and the story in the film itself sort of simultaneously feels as if it looks backwards to the sub-dom master-servant games of The Servant or Diary of a Chambermaid and forward in anticipation of the dispassionate class-based brutality of the 'home invasion' of Haneke's Funny Games. It probably helped in the UK that this was based on the work of crime novelist Ruth Rendell.

Rendell has not had many British film adaptations (mainly because everything was getting adapted by ITV for their 'Sunday night crime' block which also included things like Poirot, Cracker, A Touch of Frost and Inspector Morse. The Ruth Rendell Mysteries series followed just after Inspector Morse (but before Poirot) and consolidated that kind of murder mystery slot. Though it could be argued that all of these ITV series were following in the wake of the BBC's Miss Marple adaptations of Agatha Christie which themselves took over Sunday nights in the early 1980s), so it really fell to filmmakers outside of the UK to make film adaptations. There actually was a previous adaptation of A Judgement In Stone (the title of La cérémonie's source novel) in 1986 starring Rita Tushingham as a Canada-UK co-production, but it was La cérémonie that was the big one that really seemed to begin the trend of film adaptations of Rendell in earnest.

After this there was Almodovar's 1997 adaptation of Live Flesh, and then the rest are all French films: Chabrol somewhat bookended his late period with his other Rendell adaptation in 2004's The Bridesmaid; there is Claude Miller's version of Betty Fisher and Other Stories (based on Tree of Hands); in 2014 there was François Ozon's The New Girlfriend and then in 2015 was Valentin Valentin, featuring Geraldine Chaplin in the cast.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

This is a wonderful film that was released in the UK a number of years ago. Why is it not being released in 4k?

[yoloswegmaster]

Because not many people are going to buy it in 4K

[What A Disgrace]

The audience for popular 90s French thrillers must be much smaller than the audience for semi-obscure 50s cult westerns.

[yoloswegmaster]

[colinr0380]

The audience for popular 90s French thrillers must be much smaller than the audience for semi-obscure 50s cult westerns.

That could be the only explanation for the egregious lack of L'appartement.

[CSM126]

La beavermonie

[domino harvey]

CC this to the color timing in those caps. Vom City

[tenia]

That's another Eclair timing for you !

[Finch]

Thank goodness I hadn't sold the AE BD yet. Are Eclair likely to be grading future Chabrol restos, too?

[Peacock]

What film stock was it shot on? Maybe it’s accurate and the DVD was not?
I’ll take a look at the film if anyone knows.

[jsteffe]

Maybe the grading is on the warm side, but it is far from the worst example. Many other recent grades of French films have weak blacks and a strong color push that really impacts the whites. Look at the red, yellow, blue, white, and black in capture 13 for the Criterion Blu-ray. Based on all of Gary's captures, this new restoration doesn't just have some crudely applied LUT--it is carefully balanced in different scenes.

On the whole, the older AE Blu-ray has much weaker contrast and less color depth. The red/magenta push is obvious, and I see red banding in the blacks. The Criterion looks like a big improvement to me.

[Rupert Pupkin]

This is sad; a new way for "greenwashing" ? looks like Jacqueline Bisset has green eyes (in comparison to Day For Night this is almost frightening); I skipped the Arrow box set which used the France master to keep (better than nothing) "L'Enfer" by Cohen, even if this is an old (and probably not accurate) transfer and color grading; but at least Emmanuelle a les yeux bleus.

this reminds me the Claude Chabrol box set by Cohen (obviously the master especially "L'enfer" were not new but the third movie ("The Swindle") has an excellent color grading (not so "neutral")
I also had "Merci pour le chocolat" (Cohen; here it was almost like a digital restoration because the Mk2 logo didn't look white ); and after having exchange with Tenia and read carefully his test, I was really pleased by the French new restoration of "Merci pour le chocolat"; some obvious differences with the color grading but not that terrible (and there was a true improvement of HD details for this new restoration).

Again it's a missed-opportunity; but what Criterion could have done unless skip the whole Chabrol catalogue ?
The bonus looks very interesting to say the least; especially Bong Joon Ho interview.
I remember how fascinating was the MK2 DVD with Claude Chabrol analyzing several scenes of these movies (I won't spoil the scene) but it was a true "leçon de cinéma". Logically in a "normal" world, this blu-ray should have been an upgrade over my good old MK2 DVD, well; I will skip it. The Artificial Eye seems a better choice for me.
All actors were amazing; the bourgeoise family with Virginie Ledoyen, J.P Cassel and Jacqueline Bisset.

Perhaps Criterion should consider to "dérouler le tapis rouge" for Emmanuel Mouret : there are a lots of discussions here at criterion forum. And Virginie Ledoyen was so funny, moving and in "Un Baiser s'il vous plaît" that this movie should be in the Criterion collection.
His first movies like "Vénus et Fleur" et "Laissons Lucie Faire" where Emmanuel Mouret plays a secret agent were such a refreshing debut.

[tenia]

Thank goodness I hadn't sold the AE BD yet. Are Eclair likely to be grading future Chabrol restos, too?

All the Chabrol done by Eclair are kind of looking like this. All the ones they haven't done don't look like this.
There are much worse Eclair'd movies than this though, but Rien ne va plus had me quite frustrated.

[nicolas]

I have the Carlotta BD of La céremonie and gave it a look (had it still sealed) after seeing these screenshots.

This is certainly odd as the look on the Carlotta is totally different - it’s really striking.
The master is probably the same but there’s no blanket yellow or green tint.

As we know from these efforts, black levels are usually affected by that, appearing mushy and never having OLED-deep, “true” blacks.

La céremonie has deep blacks, has whites, has genuine reds and overall a very nice palette. A warm, yellow *hint* is there but nothing I saw was drenched in that. Compared to the very drab old master (based on the Beaver caps - I don’t have any other edition), this may seem as a striking opposite but on my TV it feels perfectly fine and adequate. There are way, way worse French remasters. I’d even go so far and claim that this is one of the best restorations made by the “usual suspects”.

The Beaver screenshots (take with a grain of salt) are indeed quite green, so either they’re wrong or Criterion received a different master. This isn’t the first time - Criterion got a better master of some Wong Kar-wai films - and I’m aware of cases where David M / FiM, who encoded the Carlotta BD, performed additional restoration and grading when necessary. I have no information on what’s the case here but maybe he did.

What I assume will be most problematic on the Criterion is the encode. I can immediately see areas that are guaranteed to cause Criterion and the best authoring house in the world big trouble. Even David is at his limits there. His encode never turns into a macroblocking mess but the grain structure is close to collapsing. This is no deficit or criticism but a compliment that he’d been able to hold everything together seamlessly. Criterion will 100% fail at that.

If you speak French, I’d warmly recommend this release. I’ll add external subtitles for myself and pass on the Criterion despite the surely interesting Bong Joon-ho interview.

[Finch]

How does one go about adding external subtitles to a Blu-Ray? Would this only work on a PC or are there some UHD/BD players that enable you to do that, too? For 4k, I want to get the Sony UBP X800M2 next year.

[domino harvey]

I believe some Oppo models let you put them on a USB stick and then you can select the subs if there are other subtitle options on the disc

[senseabove]

How does one go about adding external subtitles to a Blu-Ray? Would this only work on a PC or are there some UHD/BD players that enable you to do that, too? For 4k, I want to get the Sony UBP X800M2 next year.

Got a whole thread on the subject.