Buffet froid (1979)
Buffet froid (1979)
DVD5 | ISO | NTSC 4:3 | 01:29:06 | 4,09 Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Crime, Comedy
DVD5 | ISO | NTSC 4:3 | 01:29:06 | 4,09 Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Crime, Comedy
Black comedy about solitude and dishumanization of the modern world, through the adventures of three men. First introduced is Alphonse Tram, an unemployed young man. His only neighbour is the police chief-inspector Morvandieu. Then a third man appears: he is Alphonse's wife's murderer… Bizarre and unreal.
IMDB
The first thing one notices about Buffet Froid is the emptiness of the RER station at La Defense into which Alphonse Tram (Depardieu) steps before striking up a conversation with an unnamed commuter (Serrault). Instead of the bustle of a popular metro station, which one would expect, it is deserted but for this pair, who bicker over the holding of a flick-knife. As an empty train pulls into the station, Alphonse Tram leaves for an empty high-rise in an empty suburb of Paris. Buffet Froid - Cold Cuts, when translated from French - is, therefore, Blier's look at alienation in a large city, albeit an alienation that is experienced on feeling so stifled that the only way to feel free is to kill, however inadvertent the act.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
Buffet Froid is a black comedy in which Alphonse Tram is unwittingly involved in several murders despite having no memory of committing the crimes. That he is involved is never open to question - his flick-knife is the weapon by which each victim dies - but his confusion rather than his feelings of guilt lead him to confess to his neighbour, Inspector Morvandieu (Bernard Blier, the director's father) who refuses to listen, saying that, as he is eating, he is off-duty. As Alphonse and Morvandieu become the axis around which murders occur, least not the murder of Alphonse's wife, committed by an unnamed killer (Carmet) who refuses to leave their presence, the trio become lost in the high rises of Paris before awaiting the arrival of justice in a rural retreat…
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
Of course, this being a Bertrand Blier, the story really matters very little. Instead, the plot of Buffet Froid is simply a bleak tale of murder on which is hung an impressionistic view of life in a modern city, much of which is as confusing as Blier's disregard for time and the presence of his characters. After all, there is barely the need to pay much attention to the film's opening scenes to realise the impossibility of what the audience is watching - Alphonse Tram clearly gives his flick-knife away, yet he is later accused of taking it to commit a murder. Then again, the victim of Alphonse's crime is seen leaving the La Defense RER station on an otherwise empty train but we then see him towards the exit of the same station, lying in a corridor with Alphonse's knife in his belly. At once, this murdered commuter clears Alphonse of his murder but we later hear from a witness to the crime, who, without question or argument, fingers Alphonse as the murderer. Confusing…yes, it is but those with a knowledge of Blier's work will have already noted the surreal heart of his films, which would further appear throughout the five films that would follow Buffet Froid, which would only end when Anouk Grinberg energised his work as Gerard Depardieu once did.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
Buffet Froid is the opening film in Bertrand Blier's second period of filmmaking, one that would eventually reach commercial and critical fruitition with Trop Belle Pour Toi. Placing Buffet Froid within his career, Blier's first period is notable for being one that was met with outrage, containing the still-controversial Les Valseuses, Calmos and the Oscar-winning Preparez Vous Mouchoirs. With his third period beginning with Merci, La Vie in 1991, that leaves twelve years in which Blier explored simple themes of humanity with a dazzling and often surreal complexity. Notre Histoire, for example, was a study of love and freedom from Blier but was set against the stories told by a nymphomaniac and the hundreds of men she had slept with, all of whom gather in one house to remember the moment that being with her had finally made them feel alive. Trop Belle Pour Toi, still Blier's most famous film, saw Gerard Depardieu begin an affair with his dowdy secretary (Josiane Balasko) in spite of his marriage to the beautiful Carole Bouquet, who also appears in a less-flattering role as Balasko's lonely neighbour. Bouquet still pines for a lover who left her years before and who still carries a telephone wherever she goes just in case he should call.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
Buffet Froid is no less difficult a film than any of Blier's other but similarly, it is often as funny and as unsettling as the best of his work. As Trop Belle Pour Toi uses Blier's choice of music to upset the comfortable lifestyle of Depardieu's Bernard, so too in Buffet Froid does he make use of music to increase the claustrophobia felt by each member of the main trio. In one of Buffet Froid's most memorable scenes, Blier has his characters drift into a mansion, where they are greeted by the ageing host of a society party who bustles Morvandieu into an oversized bed, keeping him prisoner by surrounding him with a string quintet playing Brahms. That Morvandieu shoots his way out of the party, adding another five killings to his tally, is a moment of comedy but as the bodycount increases and, in a moment of typically grotesque Blier justice, a crowd of policemen surround Alphonse and his disgraced friend, Buffet Froid retreats to the countryside to have our trio of killers reflect on their actions. As ever with Blier, however, such reflection is short-lived and as they bicker amongst themselves in the shade of an enormous wooden villa, distance proves no obstacle to their actions in Paris. That Buffet Froids ends with a degree of peacefulness being reached, it also shows that the claustrophobia of the city dissipates once the main cast leaves for the country, with the crowded framing of the city replaced by scenes that dwarf the main characters with grand scenery.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
A typical Blier film is usually filled with more ideas that the plot could possibly cope with and although many appear to get lost, a key part of Blier's work is the loose adaptation of a frantic script without much thought for the ability of the viewer to stay with it. During Merci, La Vie, Blier admitted as much in his script, with the clash of AIDS-era modernity and the Nazi-occupied France of World War II, leaving one character to ask, "What the hell period are we in? If there's AIDS, there can't be any Nazis; and if it's the Nazi era, there's no AIDS. And we can fuck." Buffet Froid is no different but in spite of there being a busy middle section, it offers a more relaxed first and final act than is common for the director. Throughout the film, however, and no matter how complex Blier's script or his framing of a scene, the loneliness at the heart of Buffet Froid is allowed time and space to be expressed, whether in the RER station as it opens or in the middle of a vast lake as it ends. Feeling lost with a Blier film will not be a unique experience to anyone but in Buffet Froid as in his other films, that he manages to hold onto his ideas amid startling and often dazzling cinematography and writing is all that is needed to justify Blier's place amongst the greatest of writers and directors.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
Buffet Froid, alongside Les Valseuses, Tenue De Soiree and Trop Belle Pour Toi, is one of Bertrand Blier's better-known films in this country and was given both a VHS release during the nineties as well as one on DVD in the past month or so. It's also arguably one of his better films but such is the nature of the director that opinions vary wildly even amongst this fans. Compared to the more intelligent storytelling of Tenue De Soiree and Trop Belle Pour Toi, Buffet Froid can appear to be overly simple at first glance but it is more restrained than the scattered Les Valseuses and Merci, La Vie, sitting somewhere between these extremes and alongside the likes of Notre Histoire, Mon Homme and La Femme De Mon Pote.
Buffet froid (1979)
![Buffet froid (1979)]()
As with all of these films, however, Buffet Froid is often wonderful and Blier brings such style to this and all of his films that minor faults are easily overlooked. Despite the apparent coldness of the characters and the environments into which they are placed, Buffet Froid is a warm and funny film in which bored and lonely men drift into violence only because it's preferable to sleeping or sitting up all night chain-smoking and looking out of their bedroom window over Paris.
Buffet froid (1979)
Special Features:
- Trivia
- Production notes
- Filmography
Many Thanks to Original uploader.
If you want to download it, but found out that links are dead,
just leave a comment or PM me!
just leave a comment or PM me!
No More Mirrors.