Rated 4 out of 5
One of the most provocative movies of all times
I like this movie for its outrageousness and its ability to combine an allegoric vision and a creeping reality: what are we doing with our lives? Where will this boredom of modern living lead us to? The idea of four friends engaging in an all-out "Grande Abbufatta" (the original title in Italian) is quite a perceptive allegory of what happened to the so-called Western civilization as a whole. It seems it has nowhere to go but to a formidable blow-out since its very beginning... I’’m not a big fan of Marco Ferreri’’s work. I think he was quite irregular in his output, but when he hit the mark he was simply second to none. For me, this "La Grande Bouffe" and "L’’Ape Regina" ("The Queen Bee" or "The Conjugal Bed", 1963, with Ugo Tognazzi and Marina Vlady) are among the best examples of black comedy ever to be given us by filmmakers anywhere in the world. His choice of actors couldn’’t be better: Mastroianni, Piccoli, Noiret and Tognazzi will be forever among the greatest in this trade, and in "La Grande Bouffe" all of them give us one of the finest of their efforts ever.
I was very happy when I knew this movie was being released on DVD because I had seen it twice in movie theaters: in 1978 (the Italian-spoken version) and in 1981 (the French-spoken version, the one on this DVD). I was hoping the DVD version would bring both. I was quite disappointed to see that it brings only the French-spoken version, with English subtitles. It would have added much more to my pleasure if this DVD version of "La Grande Bouffe" would come with both Italian- and French-spoken versions, and also with Italian and French - besides English - subtitles.
If I’’m not mistaken, it’’s possible to do this with any DVD (if not, please correct me), for I have many DVDs at home with a choice of several languages on the audio tracks and an equally wide variety of subtitles’’ choice. Also, the music that Philippe Sarde wrote for this movie has haunted me since the very first time I saw "La Grande Bouffe". I have been hunting for this movie’’s music all over the world to no avail for decades now (can anyone out there help me on that? Was this music ever issued on tapes, LPs or CDs anywhere?). I was hoping that on DVD they would provide us also with a choice of hearing this sensuous and intriguing music without the dialogues, but this too was denied to us viewers.
For these two reasons only (lack of a wider choice of languages and subtitles, and lack of a separate track for the music) I don’’t give this DVD a 5-star rating.
Rated 5 out of 5!
