How far can a chip on your shoulder take you?, could be this film's alternative title! What can I say... it's stylish, immaculately acted (the two lead actresses, Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert, are outstanding. But then, that's not saying much as we're talking about two of the world's most talented artists), the pacing is perfect, the plot unravels without ever a hitch or a loose end, the script is top class... but it has a quality of coldness that to me, makes so many of the Claude Chabrol films I see fall short of memorable. In its perfection, it's a heartless film. I don't mean that the story is heartless, but the execution of it. Perhaps, after all, it could have done with a few flaws, with a touch of imperfection, something which is the mark of a work of art created by human hands. Perhaps, Claude, the slickness has been mastered too well lately?
Review of La Cérémonie
