Buffet froid

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.

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.

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 !

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.

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...