In Marco Ferreri’s notorious Swiftian satire, four middle-aged friends convene at a villa for the express purpose of gorging themselves to death. Over the course of several days, a womanizing pilot (Marcello Mastroianni), an effeminate television producer (Michel Piccoli), an infantilized magistrate (Philippe Noiret), and an exacting chef (Ugo Tognazzi) isolate themselves from the world to engage in an epic culinary bacchanal, pausing only to carouse with the three sex workers (Florence Giorgetti, Solange Blondeau, and Cordelia Piccoli) and the one oversexed schoolteacher (Andréa Ferréol) invited along to their grotesque feast. By turns sumptuous, scatalogical, and hilariously disturbing—and starring some of the greatest names in the history of European cinema—La grande bouffe was an immediate succès de scandale upon its premiere at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, before being recognized as a brilliantly abrasive attack on the self-indulgent West’s decadent misogyny, material overconsumption, and hollow spirituality. This career peak from the ever-controversial Ferreri fashion's unforgettable social critique out of inimitable gallows humor and nightmarish hedonism.
Details
- 131 min
- Color
Formats
- DCP
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