La grande bouffe (1973)

After watching this I never, ever want to eat again. This is one of the few films along with Cold Fish and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover that has literally made me sick to my stomach so bad I want to throw up. La Grande Bouffe centers on four middle-aged, middle-class men who abandon their normal, bourgeois lives for a weekend "gastric seminar". In reality they plan to eat and fuck themselves to death. What starts off as a rather cute comedy turns into something close to a horror movie as they push the limits of unrestrained hedonism, and when a not-so-innocent schoolteacher joins the party, things really take a turn for the wild. What is most scary is how La Grande Bouffe is even more relevant today in the age of Girls Gone Wild and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. What has kept Ferreri's movies from aging is that he always maintained an observational stance. He never allowed his own opinions to interfere with what was on screen. In this way, his movies play out like surreal documentaries from a slightly altered reality. He also had a way of exquisitely choreographing his movies in a way that feels as if they are one long, extended movement. And, as always, he worked with top-shelf actors on this one. Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret, and Ugo Tognazzi are great together, and Andrea Ferreol holds her own against these legends. In the end, though, this is probably my least-favorite Ferreri movie I have seen so far. It is not as beautiful as some of his other stuff, it is a half an hour too long, has a weak ending, and honestly becomes quite tedious at times. A great work, but not a masterpiece.