Opiniones de usuarios

Imagine a crime film without all the usual elements - a beginning (crime), middle (investigation) and end; a guilty criminal and an investigative detective; a femme fatale who is punished; a restoration of order. BUFFET FROID is the nightmare flipside of the policier, where the hero is an unemployed philosopher, who may or may not be a murderer, who befriends his wife's killer, and his neighbour, a detective who sanctions paid homicide and is trapped in a plot where the answer he seeks is himself. Every revelation leads to further obfuscation and instead of the restoration of order is its destruction.

The film plays like a futuristic thriller directed by Bunuel - and if Blier's ultimate timidity means it's never quite as good as that, it's still a remarkable achievement in mainstream, never mind generic, cinema, and very, very funny.

Alphonse Tram is plagued by nightmares of murder and pursuit. Employing existentialism, absurdism and even a little slapstick, writer/director Bertrand Blier leads Alphonse (Gerard Depardieu), his randomly acquired companions, and the viewer through a maze of hallways, stairways, and pathways to meet his fate.

The performances by Depardieu, Blier's father Bernard Blier, and a supporting cast made up of stars from French film and theatre (including an early cameo by Michel Serrault, best known as Albin/Zaza in "La Cage aux Folles"), are all marvelously nuanced and the film hasn't a beat out of place.

I went in really having no idea what this movie was about. I do that sometimes so as to get more surprise, in essence to get more out of the experience. Well in this case I was not only surprised but even amazed. Nothing that I was expecting was coming out as I thought... ohhh yes, except at the end. The final was the only logical way to conclude such a strange story. And interestingly enough, that too goes against common sense, whereas in regular movie, the final is often an attempt to surprise the viewers.

Of course this is a farce, of course it makes no sense whatsoever. But the point is that it's funny and clearly out of this world. So, once you get the idea, all you have to do is let yourselves be carried by the flow. In fact, after a while I was even playing with possible next victims... but I was fooled all the time. I am just too Cartesian, hehehe!

At any rate, it does take a special sense of humor to appreciate this movie. The acting by all the seasoned actors is just right, cool, no exaggeration, just enough to get the story moving along, however weird it might be.

In conclusion, this is a very unusual and therefore interesting movie.

DETECTIVE(S): Two men sit on a RER station platform at night. They engage in small talk. A knife is drawn. Later, one of these men will turn up dead. From here, things get ever more absurd; with the film becoming an arcane detective story in which questions are asked, but never answered, and answers are given to questions that were never asked. It's funny! And presented in the style of a surrealist nightmare of deadpan characterisations and a beautiful aimlessness that might just be a sly-social critique on the generation pre-François Mitterrand, and of the complexities of the overwhelming dislocation of modern-day existence. ABSTRACTION: The film can also be interpreted as a preposterous parody of the erosions of French national values against a jarring, Manhattan like skyline; which here seems to underpin the lost, isolation and stark confusion central to the majority of the recurring characters, as they become dwarfed by a surrounding architecture that is loaded with ideas of consumer-driven aspiration, social change and industrial improvement.

WINDOWS: To capture this sense of heightened atmosphere, director Bertrand Blier makes great use of the Hauts-de-Seine area of Paris - and in particular La Défense - with its towers of glass and steel and the areas of flat concrete that take on an even more surreal and alienated quality as a result of the nocturnal setting and the film's complete lack of any such signs of life. It creates a world that is oddly compelling and completely fascinating, with the film becoming a sort of aimless, rambling, nocturnal odyssey; as an unemployed philosopher takes up with a corrupt detective and the hapless criminal that murdered his wife and embarks on a bizarre quest that seems to be about everything and nothing simultaneously. BOATING: Throughout the film, the form and presentation of Blier's script and direction seem to suggest a sort of Buñuelian take on The Last of the Summer Wine (BBC, 1973), with a few further hints to the territory of Jacques Rivette's epic, multi-layered farce, Celine and Julie Go Boating (1972) thrown in along the way. Like that film, Buffet Froid (1979) deals with playful ideas of abstraction as a picaresque charade, as we shuffle between miniature-vignettes that capture a feeling rather than a story, and a sense of idyllic, lazy meandering playfulness that occasionally jars against the darker, though always tongue-in-cheek elements of the script.

ADVENTURE: The narrative is episodic and often confusing, as we find ourselves in the midst of a mad jumble of ideas and interpretations that jostle for our attention amidst the charismatic performances and the constant reliance on blistering, surrealist wit. Without question, the film is completely charming despite its seeming lack of an overall structure or plot; as three characters submerge themselves in an adventure that seems to involve roaming the nocturnal streets of Paris and engaging in darkly comic sketches of absurd role-play and duplicitous abandon. GAMES: These escapades ultimately tells us a great deal about the characters, without having to resort to lengthy scenes of dialog or interaction; with Blier building on the tone of that opening scene on the station platform and carrying it through to the later scenes, in which the deft character relationships and effortless games within the script captivate us and take us along with these ciphers on an ironic adventure that eventually closes in on itself. It naturally sounds more complicated than it actually is, however, fans of French cinema and the progressive surrealism of many of the filmmakers aforementioned - chiefly Buñuel and Rivette - will surely get a big kick out of the film's constant charm, energy, and spirited sense of subversion.

INFLUENCE: Likewise, the film should also appeal to anyone with a fondness for the films of Aki Kaurismäki - whose second film, Calamari Union (1985) owes something of a debt - and the deadpan constructions of Roy Andersson's recent work, Songs From the Second Floor (2000) and You, The Living (2007). You can also see a certain influence from legendary firebrand Jean Luc Godard present in the film's disregard for genre and deconstructive approach to narrative convention; while the look and feel of Blier's film may have even gone on to influence the style of the "cinema du look" - a brief resurgence of high-concept, 80's French cinema that looked to the spirit of La Nouvelle Vague and applied it to more contemporary concerns. Films such as Diva (1981), Subway (1985) and Mauvais Sang (1986) have a similar feeling of uncertainty and dislocation, with the elements of irreverent humour and characters reduced to ironic ciphers. DECONSTRUCTION: Its self-aware cinema then; a form a film-making that self-consciously reinvents itself from one scene to the next, but somehow feels completely natural; even as we move from a low-key sequence of character interaction, to a bizarre, satirical sequence in a gloomy country-mansion!

COLD-CUTS: Ultimately, I like this film because I like the characters, and I like the lazy, languorous atmosphere that is created by the situations that present themselves. This is helped by the perfect casting of an excellent Depardieu giving one of his best, comedic performances, ably supported by Jean Carmet as a nonchalant murderer and misogynist and the director's own father, esteemed actor Bernard Blier, as the contradictory police inspector. If you can appreciate this atmosphere, the dynamics of the narrative, the absurd jokes and the warm sparring of the characters then you should get a lot out of Buffet Froid, which not only offers entertainment, but a puzzle of sorts for the audience to make sense of. I can understand why some would dismiss it completely, but for me, the film is just endlessly fascinating and filled with deadpan farce that only the French can convey. It all builds incessantly to that unexpected final, in which the true absurdities of the film become apparent and Blier hits us with closing gag that somehow makes sense of the entire experience.

'Buffet Froid' made in 1979 by Bertrand Blier can be seen as an almost perfect antithesis of the films of the French New Wave that had burst into the cinema world two decades ago. If the New Wave was a Reformation, this film belongs to the Counter-Reformation. Formal simplicity is opposed by abstract sophistication. Lively street scenes are opposed by empty streets at night or lofts transported from New York to the sky-scrappers in the Defense district of Paris. The characters drawn from life are opposed by characters descending from Beckett's or Ionesco's theater. Sincerity is opposed by lack of emotion. Naturalism is opposed by absurd. But, maybe it's all a dream?

The film starts with a ten minute scene that takes place in a Paris subway station. Two characters entertain a dialogue that could be extracted from 'En attendant Godot'. It's about the dreams, or better said the nightmares that haunt one of them (played by Gérard Depardieu). In the dream he is a wanted assassin, followed but never caught by the police. Does the dream start here? Or maybe we are in a dream in the beginning, as Parisians know, the La Defense subway station is never completely empty, not even at night. Further action includes corpses, fast consoled widows, car chases, assassination attempts through music, wine bottles and canned food. Nothing makes too much sense. The characters act like robots that do a lousy job, both socially and emotionally.

The film has an interesting aesthetics, even if too obviously programmatic. Dialogues are fun, even if they seem a little retro nowadays. Existentialism and absurd theater need landmarks to be appreciated and enjoyed all the way. These are missing in this movie, which looks more like an absurd theater show filmed in the '70s. As a spectator I can not fail to appreciate the acting performances of Depardieu, Bernard Blier, and others, but I would have preferred them to be used for better causes.

This is one of my favorite black comedies, on a level with Strangelove, After Hours, The Loved One, Little Murders and Cul de Sac. A kind of Three Stooges meets Samuel Beckett, it successfully traverses farce, slapstick, absurdism, and intellectual existential psychodrama. The stooges are hilarious, particularly Bernard Blier, the great French character actor (and father of director,) while the women are all in danger but really in control of this careening nightmare. The shift 3/4ths of the way through from the surreal city nightscape into the sunny countryside is brilliant and leads to a perfect ending...

A parody of the noir genre where everyone's reactions to actions are not what it should be. It appears to be a strange dream where the protagonist is living in but as the story moves the absurdity catches up to him wishing to wake up from it. It's not a dream, it's a guy who's stuck in some crazy world created by Blier I think. It's an oddball experimental film coming from Bertrand bliers playful cynical mind. Goes to show what a filmmaker can do if he's truly free to do what he wants.

Seriously, Gerard Depardieu has done very little for English language cinema. 1492? My Father The Hero? Green Card? I'll pass, thanks. But with subtitles he's great. This little-known absurdist drama puts him as one of three mismatched men linked by murder and random chance. The films opens at a train station where Depardieu meets a man who is soon dead – possibly by Depardieu's own hand. His wife dismisses it, but is soon dead herself. The police detective upstairs doesn't want to know, he has his own problems. And then the wife's murderer shows up for a chat. Could be a terrible thriller – is a bizarre comedy. The daunting, oppressive cityscapes in the bulk of the film eventually give way to a disconcerting bucolic countryside for the finale, but the surrealism never lets up. Enter this world, and don't expect to leave intact.

This could have been a great French black comedy. The shots particularly on urban life are well executed. The story progresses into just right pace with unexpected twist in it. However, when the film nears its end, it devolved into a rubbish piece of French cinema. I imagined that the people making this film got a good start and then suddenly got bored with it and quickly finished it with a very bad ending. Great acting and cinematography were wasted unnecessarily.

Though everything about this film is technically well done, it lacks both edge and depth. The story is pointedly absurd and while there are a good number of funny moments, the point of the film, much like Godard's Weekend, (which is a much better film in my opinion), is to abuse the viewer. If you are into that thing vas-y, amuse-toi, s'y abuse!

This is a superbly surreal black comedy from Bertrand Blier. It won a Cesar award for the screenplay. Gerard Depardieu plays an unemployed guy named Alphonse Tram, who may or may not have killed a stranger in the subway. He lives with his wife in a strange and stylish, almost empty high-rise apartment block. That is until she is killed by a misogynist murderer who is afraid of the dark. He knocks on Alphonse's door and announces this to him after her death; Alphonse then immediately makes him a meal and chats amiably with him.

The other main character is an odd police chief inspector (played by the director's father). Alphonse tells him he could have knifed a man in the subway, and later introduces him to his wife's murderer. The inspector completely overlooks all this of course. The inspector tells the other two men it's better to keep the murderers on the streets, that way they don't contaminate the innocent in prison. Another scene has the three men comforting the wife of a man they have just killed (on his instructions). She is then extremely ill in bed, and the trio call for a doctor. He arrives, and then makes love to the stricken lady while the men watch. Afterwards he gives the diagnosis, "It's just a minor viral infection."

The misogynist murderer is later seen searching for a woman alone to kill. A man tells him there's a mature lady who lives next door to him. "How do you know she's mature?", "Because she makes Jam.", he offers. The police inspector later asks for around thirty officers to accompany him to a house to arrest a violinist, just because he is allergic to them. It is all very funny, surreal and refreshing. If you like the later films of Buñuel, you'll like Buffet Froid.

A monument of dark humour, Buffet Froid relies more on what is not said rather than the obvious slapstick humour we're being fed on extensively these days. I showed it to many people and a lot of them admitted they did not understand because it was not "anchored in reality" - to which I answered that not everything is supposed to be. This is superior quality surrealism, and the trio Depardieu-Blier-Carmet works wonders. RENT IT !

Some viewers think this dark comedy is "boring" and "disappointing". Granted, this movie is not for everybody. But to say that nobody would like it is purely idiotic. Nobody has the same humor, and you cannot generalize when it comes to such variable parameters. To me, Buffet Froid is the quintessential black comedy, and it made me laugh from start to ending, despite its slow tempo and absurd-like tone. If I had to compare it with American dark comedies, I would say Fargo comes pretty close. I would also suggest the following movies for those who enjoyed Buffet Froid: Barton Fink, Happiness, Delicatessen, Dr Strangelove, Carne, Cible Emouvante and Man Bites Dog.

It takes a special kind of quality to make anything that is bleak and absurd and empty into something that truly holds up without being complete intellectualism/artistic onanism. This film achieves that.

It also takes a special kind of quality to make anything completely remote and arbitrary funny. This film achieves that. It's quite hilarious at times because it's so fresh, and random and unexpected although it's utterly consistent with itself.

Depardieu is awesome as always and more than any other buys into the shenanigans of the concept brilliantly, it's like he's a real life person although his entire character is most perfectly ridiculous and impossible.

There are fine symbolic psychological traits that bring about some kind of aesthetic to the film (Blier's character and his aversion for music). Moreover, the completely barren urban landscapes, seemingly perpetually nocturnal, (that vacant building) and the eerie absence of anyone but the protagonists during any one scene bring this nightmarish facet to the whole which adds to the comic absurdism. It's like they're all alone in their strange old little planet, and it doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest.

Top notch. Also, the pacing and format are just right. At under 1hr30 this is pure efficient cinema that delivers the goods and don't spoil that fine taste from the beginning. Ending is on par with the rest of it. Very well done. Rare quality. 8.5/10.

I won't go into the plot, it's not important, except to say that it centres on a "friendship" between three men. One may have murdered someone in the subway. One is a probably homicidal detective. And the third murdered the first man's wife. This is a French film, and it's hard to see it working well in any other language or setting. The sudden shift to the countryside is a little jarring, but that would be my only minor criticism of the film.

In my admittedly blithe and unwaveringly Blier- biased opinion, that most audaciously gifted Gallic genre iconoclast, Bertrand Blier, remains the perversely playful 'L'Enfant terrible' of French new wave cinema, and his deliciously immoral, abyssal-dark comedy thriller, 'Buffet Froid' aka 'Cold Cuts' is a ferociously frosty treat, a preternaturally perverse revenger's tragedy wherein no fell dead goes wickedly unpunished!

The impish, perfectly blackened, pitilessly sardonic script is a mordantly mirthsome triumph of taciturn terror tactics, and the immaculate, strangely skewed performances by our determinedly devilish trio of ingenuous, knife-fetishizing psychopath, Alphonse Tram (Gerard Depardieu), the demonically deadpan police inspector Morvandieu (Bernard Blier), and an especially weaselling, paranoid portrayal of the terrifically timorous strangler 'L'assassin' (Jean Carmet) makes for a rare epicurean feast for the senses! There is something palpably feline, unwholesomely capricious about the unpredictably off-beat narrative, the predatory glee with which the director toys with film noir conventions, capriciously twisting the chiaroscuro crime tropes into an alternate, far more abstract realm! Like Chabrol on ayahuasca, Hitchcock on HRT, or, perhaps, merely the inimitable, Bertrand Blier on fabulously feral form, 'Buffet Froid' is a sympathetically surrealistic film treasure, and I truly envy anyone who has yet to experience the ambivalently murderous charms therein! Dig in!

How to describe the undescrible ? Three men, a killed women, an empty building, a crazy town... And one hour and half of laugh if your sense of humour is dark and crazy enough !

BUFFET FROID is a masterpiece, nothing else. Director Bertrand Blier uses his talent mostly in the dialogues. One catch phrase after another, the screenplay is full of surprises. And don't try to expect something because surely it will be the opposite. Depardieu is terrific with a lot of flegme and energy. Since this cult movie, Blier tried to do the same over and over again. But this is truly the original one.

The principle of the film is to take banal situations, from everyday life, and to twist them with elements of absurdity and mise en abyme. With the background of a killer's journey.

The film relies a lot on the settings: the district of La Défense in Paris and its towers, at night, the empty esplanades, the empty apartment towers, the wasteland at night, the underground station, the underground parking, the deserted corridors, the greenery at the end, the lake and the rocks. All of them being deserted and empty. Including the apartments: Gérard Depardieu's apartment, which doesn't have much in the way of a human touch, or Bernard Blier's apartment with its unpacked boxes. All the sets in the La Défense district, corridors, esplanades, platforms, staircases, halls, are empty. They accentuate the unreal side of the film, almost fantastic.

The film is hard on women: it denounces misogyny and shows how women are transformed into objects. With the very beautiful and tragic character of Geneviève Page.

Beautiful opening scene too, with Michel Serrault on the train platform at La Défense station.

All in all, a symphony to put industrial habitats in abyss and denounce their lack of humanism, the film remains astonishing and unique in its kind.

Reviled by many critics, loved by a solid minority, I ended up in between, but leaning more towards the positive.

This is odd absurdist fun (described by one critic as 'Waiting for Godot' meets the New York Post). But the key word is fun. It doesn't feel "good for you", or like a stern lecture on the moral emptiness of modern life. Blier is too goofy for that. So, yes, he comments on how violence has taken over our urban world, how isolated we all are, etc. But he makes you laugh in the process, with sometimes almost 'Three Stooges' like levels of silliness. 'Little Murders' comes to mind, but I enjoyed this more.

Yes, it gets repetitive at moments, but the acting (Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet) is very good, the look (which echoes – I think intentionally – the cold, sharp modern world of 'Clockwork Orange') is terrific, and for every scene that doesn't work, there are a couple that do. Is this great, important film-making? Probably not. But I'd sure as hell rather watch this sort of playful, hyper black comedy of ideas than most of what comes out of Hollywood these days.