M.W.B.'s 11th Favorite Movie: La Grande Bouffe

“La Grande Bouffe” is trademark French cinema at its very best… or worst, depending on your viewpoint and/or gag reflex. To give you a general idea of what I mean by this, I am going to have to venture into its grotesque and frivolous plot. This I do only to warn and recommend respectively.

We begin with four friends, all upper class, middle-aged Frenchmen who gather in an extravagant home, inherited but not inhabited by one of the quartet. It is to be a retreat from the trials of aristocratic life. Awaiting them are multiple truckloads of fish, cheese, wine, vegetables, and morosely alabaster animal bits. Though not immediately evident, the gathering is a surreal suicide pact. They intend to eat themselves to death- literally.

Before they even reach the second course of their gloomy gluttony, several young ladies take their place at the table and soon the getaway becomes a feast of food and fornication, each equally emotionless. Despite the over-abundance of luxury, nobody appears to be enjoying themselves. Things that are generally considered pleasurable to humans are conducted with an air of desperation and stoicism. Lavish items are disposed of without ceremony. A monstrously elaborate cake serves only as ammunition in a bizarre food fight and a shipment of meat is strewn about the garden before it gets refrigerated.

This is not a movie that most Americans (and even some French) find appetizing in any way. When a movie is explicit and disturbing, we tend to take it at face value. In America, if a movie contains a plethora of “graphic content” it rarely bothers to venture beyond its subject matter. The French cinematic tradition, however, tends to regard the risqué with a slightly more nonchalant attitude; and movies that bear the seal of a filmmaker’s politics or philosophical ideals are certainly not hard to come by.

I like to think of “La Grande Bouffe” as a hybrid of the minds of Louis Bunel and the Marquis De Sade. The characters and their obscure hedonistic actions are merely a foil for a larger idea. It is an allegory and a biting satire on the piggyness of the Bourgeoisie and their blind intent to devour as much extravagance as is physically possible. Their downfall, whether it be by violence or indigestion always comes about as a result of a blind consumption of luxury. “La Grande Bouffe” is tasteless because it wants to express the tastelessness of its subject.

Aristocracy and decadence are a favorite theme of French satirists- and why not? When extravagance is the norm, what is extravagant? When you have the best, what can you do but want more? When something is untouchable, what is left to do but make fun of it?