La Grande Bouffe (1973)

What George Romero did with zombies in Dawn of the Dead, director Marco Ferreri does with food in La Grande Bouffe (1973), a seriously satirical indictment of our culture of excess represented by four men at the top of their profession who make a suicide pact of the most unusual sort: death by overindulgence!

Played by a quartet of Europe’s most well known actors at the time (Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, and Ugo Tognazzi), the characters gather in a decaying mansion to eat, drink and screw themselves to death. Their funereal celebration expands to include a trio of prostitutes and one chubby schoolteacher, Andrea, who accepts their invitation to dinner. As the days and nights pass, the constant parade of meats, soufflés and sex begins to take a toll on their physical and mental states. And, surprisingly enough, it’s the innocent Andrea who cheers them on towards their despairingly gluttonous demise.

Ferreri’s film, which caused a stir at its Cannes premiere, but has rarely been seen in the U.S., is far from a pleasurable experience. In fact, the discomfort of each character as they choke down mass quantities of ridiculously rich dinners and desserts causes an almost palpable case of audience indigestion. La Grande Bouffe provides no back-story for their bizarre behavior, yet, as credit to each man’s performance, their emotional ennui seems genuinely desperate. A half-hour into the film, their rather far-fetched plan becomes surprisingly believable…and, even more distressing, actually possible.

Although it fits comfortably in the categorical restraints of a European “art film,” La Grande Bouffe isn’t as remote or distant as the work of Antonioni or Truffaut. Instead, Ferreri stuffs the film with flatulence, fucking and bodily fluids of all sorts, extreme enough to earn an NC-17 when it finally played the U.S (much the same as Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & Her Lover which bears a strong resemblance). Yet beyond all the subtext and symbolism, La Grande Bouffe is a movie that just goes where we’ve never seen a film go before. And, for lovers of cinema, that’s truly the highest recommendation one can give.

Arrow Films’ Blu-ray presentation is up to their usual “set-the-bar-higher” standards. Most will be experiencing Ferreri’s film for the first time, and one couldn’t ask for a more pleasing visual experience. Extras include a number of TV interviews with the director and his cast and an essential review of Ferreri’s work by Italian film scholar Pasquale Iannone, who also contributes a shortened audio commentary for several scenes in the film.