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La Ceremonie, 1995
A reserved, slightly odd woman named Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) gets a job working for a wealthy family in their isolated home in the country. Sophie soon strikes up a friendship with the town's postal clerk, Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). As the two bond over their pasts, Jeanne begins to sew seeds of discord with Sophie, turning her against her employers.
Dang.
So, to being with, I will keep this review very spoiler free (or will spoiler text even mild spoilers), and if you haven't seen this movie I (1) recommend that you immediately check it out and (2) avoid reading ANYTHING about it before watching.
Okay, I thought that this was pretty great.
I haven't yet read any critical reviews of this yet (aside from Ebert's review that I checked out after watching), but I think that there's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack here.
What I liked most about this film was the way that it plays on two different, oppositional emotions that you might have watching a film that centers on someone working as a domestic servant. On one hand, it does a great job of showing the way that people who hire servants can extend a sense of ownership over that person. Sophie tends to follow her instructions to the letter: nothing more, nothing less. The family is put off when Sophie creates a tremendous amount of food for a party, but leaves when she is done. Further, I think that the film does a good job of showing a common misconception that can develop around domestic workers. Domestic workers make your bed and fold your clothes and cook you dinner because it is their job, not because they love you. It is a natural fallacy, in a way, to assume that someone who is doing caretaking things, you know, cares for you. But that relationship is transactional, not affectionate.
On the other side of things, the film plays on the fears about what it means to let someone into your home. While in this case the situation is a wealthy family with a maid, I think that this is a fear that people from almost any socio-economic status can experience. What if the people that you trust (doctors, teachers, repair people, etc) do not have your best interest at heart? I think that it is natural to worry that someone on whom you rely or whom you let into your life or space might be a sociopath or have their own agenda. I really liked the push pull of sympathies between Sophie and the family.
Finally (and here come some moderate spoilers)
This film was incredibly tense, right up until the last moments---even those that play underneath the credits as they roll.
I suppose that one minor critique that I had was that I didn't 100% buy some smaller character actions in the final act. And while this isn't a critique of the film per se, some of the characters are really maddening (as in, I got really angry at them), so if you struggle with disliking character, you might struggle a bit with some parts of this film).
Tense and well-acted and excellent.
La Ceremonie, 1995
A reserved, slightly odd woman named Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) gets a job working for a wealthy family in their isolated home in the country. Sophie soon strikes up a friendship with the town's postal clerk, Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). As the two bond over their pasts, Jeanne begins to sew seeds of discord with Sophie, turning her against her employers.
Dang.
So, to being with, I will keep this review very spoiler free (or will spoiler text even mild spoilers), and if you haven't seen this movie I (1) recommend that you immediately check it out and (2) avoid reading ANYTHING about it before watching.
Okay, I thought that this was pretty great.
I haven't yet read any critical reviews of this yet (aside from Ebert's review that I checked out after watching), but I think that there's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack here.
What I liked most about this film was the way that it plays on two different, oppositional emotions that you might have watching a film that centers on someone working as a domestic servant. On one hand, it does a great job of showing the way that people who hire servants can extend a sense of ownership over that person. Sophie tends to follow her instructions to the letter: nothing more, nothing less. The family is put off when Sophie creates a tremendous amount of food for a party, but leaves when she is done. Further, I think that the film does a good job of showing a common misconception that can develop around domestic workers. Domestic workers make your bed and fold your clothes and cook you dinner because it is their job, not because they love you. It is a natural fallacy, in a way, to assume that someone who is doing caretaking things, you know, cares for you. But that relationship is transactional, not affectionate.
On the other side of things, the film plays on the fears about what it means to let someone into your home. While in this case the situation is a wealthy family with a maid, I think that this is a fear that people from almost any socio-economic status can experience. What if the people that you trust (doctors, teachers, repair people, etc) do not have your best interest at heart? I think that it is natural to worry that someone on whom you rely or whom you let into your life or space might be a sociopath or have their own agenda. I really liked the push pull of sympathies between Sophie and the family.
Finally (and here come some moderate spoilers)
WARNING: spoilers below
the film does a great job of showing the way that there can be a kind of destructive chemistry between two people. Sophie and Jeanne, on their own, would probably mostly do petty little things. But when they begin to bounce off of each other, it turns into an echo chamber that amplifies their resentments and leads them to actions out of the scope of what they would probably do on their own.
This film was incredibly tense, right up until the last moments---even those that play underneath the credits as they roll.
I suppose that one minor critique that I had was that I didn't 100% buy some smaller character actions in the final act. And while this isn't a critique of the film per se, some of the characters are really maddening (as in, I got really angry at them), so if you struggle with disliking character, you might struggle a bit with some parts of this film).
Tense and well-acted and excellent.