A very bizarre 1979 comedy by France’s Bertrand Blier that functions as a film noir parody, a cautionary essay on contemporary dehumanization and an unfiltered blast of surreal invention (which its own creator has compared to THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGOISE). BUFFET FROID (“Cold Cuts”) also confirmed that Blier has a perverse streak, as he chose it as the follow-up to his Oscar winning smash GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS/Préparez vos mouchoirs (1978). That film was a good-natured sex comedy, whereas BUFFET FROID replaces the sexual content of it and most of Blier’s other films with murder (while retaining the comedy).
Unsurprisingly, the film was not a success with audiences. That was despite Blier’s ability to attract top French acting talent, including veteran performers like Geneviève Page and Michel Serrault and hot young stars like Carole Bouquet and Blier’s muse, Gerard Depardieu, (the headliner of GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS and the notorious GOING PLACES/Les valseuses).
Depardieu plays Alphonse Tram, an unemployed young man with a psychotic streak. He makes this clear during a nighttime encounter with an elderly man (Serrault) on a strangely deserted subway platform. The man somehow ends up stabbed to death with a knife that happens to belong to Alphonse (whether he actually committed the murder is left unexplained).
Back in his apartment, set in a building that like the subway platform is oddly desolate, Alphonse learns a new tenant has moved in upstairs. This turns out to be Morvandieu (Bernard Blier, Bertrand’s father), an ageing police inspector who like Alphonse has an unhealthy fascination with murder. That fascination is inflamed upon the finding of a murdered woman who just happens to be Alphonse’s wife (Liliane Rovère).
Alphonse isn’t too upset, and nor is he particularly nonplussed when his wife’s killer, a misogynistic loon (Jean Carmet) who’s never given a name, turns up at his apartment. Another new addition is Eugene (Jean Rougerie), who likewise turns up at the apartment, claiming to have witnessed the subway killing. He asks Alphonse to kill a man in a parking garage, and Alphonse unwisely agrees. Together with his new friends Morvandieu and the killer, Alphonse turns up in the parking garage at the appointed time, only to discover that the man Eugene wanted killed is himself.
That, keep in mind, only covers the first half of this film. Blier claims to have written the script in two weeks and followed no set rules of any sort, as is evident in the freeform plotting and dreamlike flow (the characters, unsurprisingly, nearly all suffer from recurring nightmares). This renders traditional criticisms, such as the overall lack of logic (why is every location so empty?) and the fact that the comedy is rarely ever funny, irrelevant. Still, Blier’s gambit of continually introducing crucial characters (three of whom turn up after the events described above, one in the final ten minutes) is plain obnoxious.
What makes the film work are the visuals, which present a deceptively bright and shiny cityscape marked by gaudy colors (red being the dominant hue). The ultimate effect of these prettily designed landscapes, presented more often than not in expansive wide shots, is chilly and dehumanizing—and nor do the pastoral settings, for which the protagonists quit the city in the final scenes, offer much in the way of solace. The second word of the title, FROID (“Cold”), adequately sums things up.
Vital Statistics
BUFFET FROID
France 2/Sara Films
Director/Screenplay: Bertrand Blier
Producer: Alain Sarde
Cinematography: Jean Penzer
Editing: Claudine Merlin
Cast: Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet, Denise Gence, Marco Perrin, Jean Benguigui, Carole Bouquet, Jean Rougerie, Liliane Rovère, Bernard Crombey, Michel Fortin, Roger Riffard, Maurice Travail, Nicole Desailly, Pierre Frag, Eric Vasberg, Geneviève Page, Michel Serrault