Claude Chabrol may be known for a great number of different films, but the one that is both the most cherished by his devotees, and serves to be the entry point for newcomers looking to get into the director’s work is La Cérémonie, his fascinating film that draws inspiration from several literary and historical sources, which are woven together to form a truly compelling story of two women pushed beyond the point of sanity. Mostly taking inspiration from Ruth Rendell’s A Judgment in Stone, which in itself was influenced by the real-life case of the Papin Sisters and their murder spree of 1933, the film is a multilayered work of unhinged madness, being composed of various narrative threads. Amongst them are disorienting dark comedy, bleak psychological thriller and even some brief flirtations with horror, which are all radically different genres that Chabrol masterfully employs to tell this story, and the result is an absolutely riveting work that is simply insatiable, particularly when it finds its stride and continues on a warpath of beautifully-constructed chaos that proves how the director was a master of both tone and style, seamlessly shifting between genres in a way that many of his contemporaries may have struggled, if they even dared to descend to the levels to which Chabrol is perfectly willing to go for the sake of capturing some particular aspect of the human condition. Wickedly funny, unquestionably terrifying and brimming with a madcap energy that keeps the viewer engaged consistently, La Cérémonie is quite an achievement, a film that has only grown in the culture, not only as a work of violent crime storytelling, but also as a deeply unsettling glimpse into the minds of ordinary people who find themselves at the other end of unhinged violence after being taken for granted for far too long.

La Cérémonie is notable for a number of reasons, the most prominent being its popularity, which is undoubtedly derived by its position as a work of gritty crime fiction (or rather, a heavily-fictionalized version of reality), which speaks directly to the widespread cultural obsession with true-crime stories. There is something about seeing notorious acts of criminality broken down and portrayed through a semi-fictional perspective. Whether this is because we tend to appreciate these kinds of stories, or because there is an inherent fascination that comes with peering into the minds of criminals, getting a glimpse into the warped psychological machinations of killers, we’re drawn to stories like La Cérémonie, which take the form of overly sensationalized, but still incredibly compelling, narratives that give us permission to be witnesses to these brutal acts, without becoming complicit in them (which is often the case with these kinds of true crime stories – many have remarked on the immense power of productions that put us directly in the midst of the action). It carries a sheen of voyeurism, especially in the harrowing final act, where the carefully-constructed social order that Chabrol put together with immense intricacy, falls apart and becomes pure anarchy, which is only exacerbated by the darkly comical tone that Chabrol employs to not only heighten the violence, but also critically look at the socio-cultural nuances behind these murders, which makes this much less of an instance of a film about simple psychopathy, but rather a bleak and haunting glimpse into various sacrosanct institutions and their insistence on maintaining decorum, a method that often works well, but is capable of backfiring entirely, as evident by the events depicted here.

Whatever it is that makes a film like La Cérémonie so compelling can’t readily be described in words, and while it may appeal to an inherent curiosity with the darker side of life, the ultimate verdict is that we are innately fascinated by deviant behaviour, as long as there is a barrier between “us” and “them”, with the latter referring to the culprits that form the basis of such stories. We’re presented with two seemingly harmless individuals – young, pastoral women who have endured different hardships, and are just looking to make an honest living and continue on a simple but pleasant existence, which is ruined by a growing disillusionment with the structures they used to find comfort in. La Cérémonie gradually shows them becoming corrupted as characters – what used to be hidden out of shame is now kept as secret to be used at one’s convenience, and both Sophie and Jeanne become increasingly sinister, taking on some terrifying qualities that make them seem both very realistic, and absurdly unlikable. Chabrol does very well in ensuring that these characters are not likeable in any way – and when you’re working with two profoundly endearing actresses like Sandrine Bonnaire and Isabelle Huppert, both of which are delivering absolutely astounding performances, such an approach is impressive in theory, so the fact that the director was able to do it so well is even more of an accomplishment. These are characters that draw us in, seducing us with their malice, while simultaneously repulsing us. There has been a tendency to romanticize fictional representations of psychopathy (which is often not the fault of the work itself, but the misguided viewers that latch onto certain characters and find traits that reflect them in some way), but there is very little chance that any viewer will emerge from La Cérémonie and feel anything other than disgust at these two characters, which indicates that the message was transmitted perfectly clearly, and Chabrol conveyed exactly what he hoped.

Deconstructing the psychology of such characters may be interesting, but it can also derail the ultimate intentions of La Cérémonie, which isn’t only focused on the crime – in fact, only the final fifteen minutes are dedicated to the act itself, with the rest of the film being a combination of building tension, and constructing a world that Chabrol would later annihilate through both the direct violence inflicted by the two main characters, and the even more disconcerting real-world implications that are evoked in the aftermath. La Cérémonie is more than just a shocking psychological thriller – it’s a profoundly fascinating text that looks into the disparity in the class system, and how it favours those with the resources to succeed, leaving those without such benefits at a disadvantage, which in turn breeds disillusionment and anger, and then occasionally even outright violence, as we see here. Perhaps La Cérémonie can be perceived as something heightened and sensationalist – Chabrol certainly doesn’t deviate from presenting these events through a gleefully sardonic lens – but the terror that comes in realizing how realistic these events are, as they’re plucked from actual events – is more unsettling than anything else we can find in this film. So much has been written about Chabrol’s version of this story, particularly in regards to the triangular dialogue it creates between Rendell’s A Judgment in Stone and Genet’s The Maids, both of which tread similar territory in fictionalizing real occurrences in ways that not only look into the actual crimes, but also the social milieu that surrounded it. So much value can be derived from what the director does with this story, and through an offbeat sense of humour and an intrepid decision to not shy away from the broader issues at the heart of the film, Chabrol is able to make a profoundly effective statement that isn’t only relevant in terms of criminal psychology, but also a wide-range of more prominent issues that are just as disconcerting.

As a film, La Cérémonie has become almost folkloric – even outside of the actual details, it’s grown into a representation of different concepts. At the most fundamental level, it’s a wildly popular entry into the canon of 1990s French cinema (which was consistently pushing the boundaries, which makes Chabrol’s work here all the more impressive – a remnant of the Nouvelle Vague, he continued to explore his unique curiosities by capturing them on film, until the very end of his career) as well as one of Isabelle Huppert’s defining performances, one of her most prominent films in terms of acquiring worldwide recognition. However, beneath the surface of La Cérémonie, there are a number of other concepts that come into focus. Chabrol, despite already being an elder statesman of French cinema, was not content with an innocuous portrayal of these events – he needed to make something had carried some message, and while class inequality has always been a profoundly popular subject, Chabrol uses this as a launching pad for one of the most shocking forays into various perils of relying on this apparently infallible system, and how it can go horribly wrong at a moment’s notice. To reduce La Cérémonie to the story of two young women who take revenge on the upper-class out of anger doesn’t do this wealth of socially-charged commentary any service, so Chabrol makes sure that he gets the message across without letting the film become too preoccupied by overwrought attempts at convincing us to the hypocrisy embedded in the class system. La Cérémonie is a work of relentless terror and disorientating humour, which blend together to create a truly unforgettable story that only becomes more harrowing the more the viewer realizes this isn’t representing an isolated incident, but reflecting reality in a way that is profoundly and unimpeachably unchanging, which is more frightening than any of the visceral violence that is employed throughout this film to make that statement clear.