La Cérémonie
| La Cérémonie | |
|---|---|
Film poster | |
| Directed by | Claude Chabrol |
| Written by | Claude Chabrol Caroline Eliacheff |
| Produced by | Marin Karmitz |
| Starring | Isabelle Huppert Sandrine Bonnaire Jacqueline Bisset Jean-Pierre Cassel Virginie Ledoyen Valentin Merlet Serge Rousseau |
| Cinematography | Bernard Zitzermann |
| Edited by | Monique Fardoulis |
| Music by | Matthieu Chabrol |
Release date |
|
Running time | 112 minutes |
| Countries |
|
| Language | French |
| Box office | $10,882,920 |
La Cérémonie (English: lit. The Ceremony also known as A Judgment In Stone) is a 1995 French psychological thriller film by written and directed by Claude Chabrol. Starring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire and adapted from the 1977 novel A Judgement In Stone by Ruth Rendell. The story follows Sophie an efficient, but quiet, cold and offbeat maid hired to work on the countryside house of a rich family. There, she befriends Jeanne, the local postmistress but soon, that friendship starts taking an increasingly dark turn.
The film echoes the case of Christine and Lea Papin, two French maids who brutally murdered their employer's wife and daughter in 1933, as well as the 1947 play they inspired, The Maids by Jean Genet.
The film received widespread critical acclaim with praise for Chabrol's screenplay and directing, and Bonnaire and Huppert's performances. In an interview, South Korean director Bong Joon Ho said the movie was one of his main inspirations to his Oscar-winning acclaimed 2019 film, Parasite.