Buffet froid
Bertrand Blier
Everything begins when unemployed Alphonse Tram meets a stranger in the deserted corridors of a railway station. Some time later he sees them again murdered with his own knife. In the massive tower block he lives in, he meets a police detective and the murderer of his wife and finds himself caught up in a series of murders which are all more surrealistic than the other.
With : Gérard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet, Michel Serrault
Screenplay : Bertrand Blier
Image : Jean Penzer
Editing : Claudine Merlin
Music : Johannes Brahms et Schubert
Screenplay : Bertrand Blier
Image : Jean Penzer
Editing : Claudine Merlin
Music : Johannes Brahms et Schubert
Production : Alain Sarde
Co-production : Tamasa
Co-production : Tamasa
Blier took a long time to prepare the scenario of this absurd tale, but no-one wanted it. It was not until he met with success in Préparez vos mouchoirs (Get Out Your Handkerchiefs) that he could impose his project on hesitant financiers. Buffet froid is to French cinema what Ionesco's plays are to contemporary theatre: a statement of freedom in the narrative and a darkness which goes beyond the absurdity of the situations, revealing a pessimistic vision of communication and human relations. It is Blier's sparsest film (the coldness of the sets, deserted places haunted by the sole protagonists), and he gives us something rare in cinema, with classic dialogues, ludicrous situations and the rejection of any temporal dimension.