La Grande bouffe

Made at a time when adults were in charge, when tolerance was normal, when issues of prime importance could be addressed, like food and sex . . without which none of us would be here . . and used in this film, as metaphors for the self-destructive impact of all addictions and compulsions in their numerous forms, that always lead to excess and always lead to social and personal dysfunction and the death of the human spirit, whether it's sex, food, hard drugs, risk addiction, risk phobia, over confidence, shyness, talking too much, defensiveness . . . in fact any human trait that we use to conceal our own failings from exposure, for fear of confronting them with courage and honesty.The fear of looking at ourselves with courage and honesty . . and then the hardest part, which is to then act on what we learn.But we now live at a time when our world is increasingly dominated by little children in adult bodies, terrified of growing up . . building a warm and cuddly Mary Poppins, 'nannie-knows-best' world that everyone must live in . . . a little children's playground, with little children's gang's waging little children's wars, but who switch to venomous aggression towards anyone that doesn't comply.In this psychotic world of man-hating feminists, SJWs and Antifa, a film like this could never be made.It's a film in which you can at times see the process of film making showing through . . not a polished film, but a film with enormous courage from the actors, demanding unusual degrees of vulnerability in their performances, and making it hard to see where fiction ceases and reality takes over.Like Bunuel's Belle de Jour, . . challenging subject matter but always with the purpose of exploring the basic question of . . how to be a good human . . and in this film, exploring the ways we can so easily fail, and offering no cosy escape from the consequences of our weakness.But if you don't enjoy abstract thought, looking at human psychology and what it reveals about human behaviour . . this film is not for you.

After reading many reviews on Amazon and elsewhere I was prepared for a really revolting experience. It turned out that the hype is far greater than the reality, although four men attempting to eat themselves to death is never going to be a pretty sight. The sex scenes were probably shocking when the film was first released in the 1970s but today they’re very mild.I found the film sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and interesting enough to stand back and think about what the director is saying. He claims, during an interview that forms one of the useful extras on the disc, that he intends no symbolism, he’s just telling a story. Well, you can believe that if you like. I think he’s having a good swipe at the French obsession with food, particularly the pretentious snobbery of haute cuisine.He also highlights the male view of women as existing mainly to serve the guys’ sexual requirements and, in passing, the typical masculine attraction to machinery (an old Bugatti). There’s even a little poke at religion, towards the end of the film. It’s all quite hard-hitting in a relaxed kind of way.The acting and direction are excellent and this restored version of the film is wonderful, like watching a brand new release. They even took the trouble to retain the slight graininess of the original celluloid film stock, which adds to the period atmosphere without getting in the way.The director is Italian and so are some of the actors but the dialogue is French, so for me the English subtitles are essential and they’ve made a good job of those too. All in all, well recommended.

Unfortunately, 46 years later, this film has lost its shock value, some of it's humour, it's uniqueness, its power and a lot of its meaning. This is because the film industry world wide has used 'La Grande Bouffe', been influenced by it and inevitably caught up with it's vision. It still has the ability to keep viewers (or most viewers) interest it just does not have the value I imagine that it's original audiences took from their viewings.

While I think I did see this when it first came out my husband hadn’t so we thought we’d watch it a few weeks ago. Without committing to spoilers I’ll just say in this current age of healthy eating you need a strong stomach to witness the food indulgences (particularly if you’re on the veggie side!), and the sex does go on a bit too!! It’s quite gross really but I got that it has to exaggerate to make its point. I did and I switched off before the end as I’d really had enough!!!

I quite like this film, though my boyfriend detests it, so I will give it a 3.I like the fact that even though they have all decided to kill themselves, they do it in style and with very tasty, well prepared foods till the end, no stuffing down frozen pizzas or CFC's, or burgers or anything awful like that. It made me wonder if it is true that one could die with such diet for so few days, so the film made me think in the whole about my own greed, and definitely put me off food for a long time (and put me off the other thing as well).

Yes this is odd and erratic, but its very watchable and entertaining, they would never ever make a film like this nowadays, worth a spin! 👍🏻

I guess this is not a film for everyone, but if you enjoy to watch great actors do something totally different, it`s a gem. It`s fun and sad at the same time. The blu ray transfer looks pretty good to my knowledge, and there are som nice extras.

I really enjoyed this film. Someone else said it was arty farty quite literally, and they're dead right! This for me was dark comedy with a layer of profound subtext. The bit where the toilet explodes was hilarious, plus other highlights you really have to watch it to see and which I won't mention here. Bad taste? Probably!