Buffet froid (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Bertrand BlierRelease Date(s)
1979 (August 18, 2026)Studio(s)
Sara Films/Antenne 2 (Indicator/Powerhouse Films)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Wikipedia describes Buffet froid (aka Cold Cuts, 1979) as a French crime thriller with strong black humor elements, but that’s hardly an apt description. It’s really more an absurdist work, cinematic but also almost like a theatrical play along the lines of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. I found the opening scenes intriguing and enthusiastically stuck with it for about half its 93-minute running time. But, along the way, I was increasingly frustrated the movie seemed to play out one scene after another with the same basic tone and purpose, and after a while the entire exercise struck me as basically pointless. Though visually intriguing and well-acted by its game cast, I more or less threw my hands in the air and gave up before the end. Your mileage may vary.
The story opens in the lower depths of the Paris Metro, where an accountant (Michel Serrault) is approached by Alphonse Tram (Gérard Depardieu), an unemployed philosopher who at first annoys and then frightens him with talk of a killing a random stranger with a switchblade just like the one he carries. Tram, trying to calm the man, discards the knife on a seat nearby, but the knife vanishes moments later, perhaps taken by another commuter. The accountant boards a train, partly fleeing Tram. Later, as Tram leaves the subway, passing several sleeping homeless men, he notices the accountant also lying nearby, fatally stabbed in the stomach with Tram’s knife. The accountant, surprisingly unperturbed, gives the knife back to Tram, along with all the cash in his wallet. He won’t be needing it, after all.
Tram returns home to his high-rise apartment building, though he and his wife, Josyane (Liliane Rovère) are its only tenants. Tram tells the wife that he may or may not have murdered a man, but this does not seem to bother her at all. “Want more fish?” she asks. She informs him that a new tenant has just moved in a few floors above. Finally, with a neighbor, Tram seems to react. As it turns out, Morvandieu (Bernard Blier, father of director Bertrand Blier) is a police inspector, so Tram confesses his Metro story to him. He pours Tram some wine.
Soon after, Tram returns home to find his wife not there. Later, worried, he tells Inspector Morvandieu, who puts a call in and, sure enough, the wife has been murdered, her body abandoned in an empty lot. Still later, the mild-mannered murderer (Jean Carmet) turns up at Tram’s door looking, apparently, for souvenirs of the woman. This does not bother Tram, who offers him some food and wine.
And so it goes.
Early scenes create an interesting atmosphere, of a deserted Paris subway, of deserted concrete and glass-dominated Paris streets, of an apartment complex where no one but the Trams (and, later, Morvandieu) live. Later in the picture, the story’s characters are similarly isolated in the countryside, where they encounter “the young woman at the end,” played by Carole Bouquet, soon to be cast opposite Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only (1981). She’s lovely to look at, even when by then you’ve given up on the movie.
Depardieu and the rest of the cast all give strong performances, in a way making Buffet froid all the more frustrating. Geneviève Page, who did a few American films including Anthony Mann’s El Cid (1961) Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), is also good, playing a sex-starved middle-aged woman. Bald, round-faced Bernard Blier, one of the great character actors of French cinema, is similarly marvelous. (His appearance recalls one of his earlier roles, in Les tontons flinguers (1963), an offbeat gangster film with a similar tone. Like Buffet froid, it was not a hit but has since garnered a cult status.)
But the point is what, exactly? I found its deadpan black humor amusing to a point, and visually it’s as interesting as its acting, but it doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere, which may be okay, but what, pray, is it trying to express? That modern, utilitarian French society is oppressive and dehumanizing? That we cling to purpose when there is none? Beats me.
Kino Lorber released Buffet froid to Region “A” Blu-ray in 2019. Powerhouse Films/Indicator’s more recent Region “A/B” Blu-ray is being released in both the U.S. and the U.K. in limited editions of 2,000 copies. (There is also a simultaneous LE release on 4K, limited to 4,000 copies.) This release is listed as a 4K restoration, though possibly the same transfer was utilized, as both offer excellent video transfers, the 1.66:1 widescreen notably sharp with excellent color. The LPCM 2.0 mono here is fine, as are the optional French subtitles.
This release repurposes Nick Pinkerton’s audio commentary, trailer, and Bertrand Blier on Buffet Froid interview from 2003, running 25 minutes. New is Les Rendez-vous du Dimanche: Buffet froid, a 1979 television interview extract (8 minutes) with Blier and members of the cast; Edinburgh Film Podcast: Sue Harris on Bertrand Blier (38 minutes), the author discussing the director’s career; a trailer commentary by Daniel Kremer; and an image gallery.
Once again—sigh—The Digital Bits was sent only a check disc and not final product, so we can’t review the 32-page booklet reportedly included.
As noted above, your mileage may vary. Perhaps in the right mood I might have found Buffet froid as wonderful and hilarious as so many reviewers on the Internet Movie Database apparently did. I liked it visually, and for the acting, and enthusiastically stayed with the film for a long while, but eventually found it more than a little wearying. Still, for the adventurous, Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV