Cheap Buffet Froid/Return of Martin (DVD) (Daniel Vigne, Bertrand Blier) Price

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Customer Reviews of Buffet Froid/Return of Martin

"You look as if you had funny ideas."
"Buffet Froid" is a macabre black comedy that revolves around the nightmarish adventures of Alphonse Tram (Gerard Depardieu). The film begins with Alphonse wandering into a brightly lit but deserted subway station. When he stumbles on a late night traveler, Alphonse begins to pester him, obviously making a complete nuisance of himself. The stranger tries to move away, but Alphonse follows. And then the two men discuss murder .... <
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>Alphonse forms a strange alliance with the pessimistic Inspecteur Morvandieu (director Bernard Blier) who is the only other resident in his otherwise deserted high-rise. But then a nervous serial killer (Jean Carmet) turns up, and the corpses and the murders begin to mount. The three men--Alphonse, Inspecteur Morvandieu, and the serial killer form an uneasy alliance. It would be stretching the situation to say they're friends. It's more accurate to say that they hang out together, drink with one another, feed off of each other's suspicions and paranoia, and betray each other every chance they get. <
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>The structure of "Buffet Froid" is a facsimile of a nightmare--in this case Alphonse's nightmare, and he lives in a murder-obsessed world. Just as in a nightmare, the film contains instances of bizarre non-logic, moments of inability to take action, the sensation of entering a room full of people who turn to stare, and an emphasis on small details--such as patterns on the floor and wallpaper. The characters in the film accept each bizarre situation as perfectly normal--it's merely the next stage of the surreal existence they dwell in. It's impossible to predict exactly who will like this absurdist film--but if you liked "Neighbors" or "Menage", for example, there's a good chance you'll enjoy "Buffet Froid." DVD extras include filmography, film trivia, and production notes. In French with English subtitles--displacedhuman

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A buñuelian film noir
In the best tradition of the sarcasticc, ironic and devasting spirit of Luis Buñuel's filmography (and obviously a Billy Wilder's touch), the film runs by its own with a masterful plot brilliant travels and remarkable performances.
Blier made a film absolutely free of any kind of convencionalism, intelligent humor, clever sense of absurd and mesmerizing laberyntic journey into the underworld, the acid view about a policeman who decides breaking the rules together with two men who are under a high stress anguish by different reasons . Suddenly all the sense of reality suffers a blackout and you become part of it.
Watch this film. And convince by yourself this is a fascinating tale, a brilliant work, and an unforgettable movie in any age.
You'll be widely rewarded. And please, forget the logical and drown in this surrealistic story.
Eternally enjoyable.
Depardieu as always at his top.

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Death Warmed Up
"Buffet Froid" is a thriller without thrills, a murder mystery with no solution, and a comedy that's only funny to a certain type of person. When you add all these ingredients up, you get one heck of a surrealist piece. It is a movie many people will hate after just one viewing. It is bleak, morbid, ruthless, and bizarre in its apparent lack of concern for plot or realism. When I watched in my high-school French class, there wasn't much laughter, though there was a lot of "What??" and "Oh, my God..." I didn't hate it, though. I was quite intrigued.

The film opens in a metro station, where a young man named Alphonse (Gerard Depardieu) attempts to engage an unfriendly older man in conversation. Oddly, the man warms up when the topic of duscussion switches to death and murder. Alphonse produces a switchblade knife, and it's hard to tell if he's threatening or just emphasizing his words. The knife vanishes; the older man grows frightened and flees on a train; and very shortly afterward, Alphonse finds him lying in a passageway with the knife buried in his stomach. Is Alphonse the murderer? Not even he knows.

Alphonse goes home, where his wife doesn't react at all upon learning of the murder. They live in a cheerless apartment halfway up a large tenement complex that is completely uninhabited except for them and their new upstairs neighbor, a police chief. Alphonse's wife goes missing and turns up murdered in a vacant lot, and before we know it, a short, nervous man is knocking on Alphonse's door and introducing himself as the murderer. Alphonse invites him in for a drink, and they are soon joined by the police chief ("I'd like you to meet my wife's murderer." "Pleasure."). Then another man shows up who wants Alphonse to assassinate someone for him, but the victim turns out to be...and so on.

"Buffet Froid" may not look like a surrealist piece, but it definitely is. All throughout the movie, there's a sense of wrongness and unreality. Alphonse, the chief, and the murderer form a kind of alliance and have an odd series of adventures that all result in someone's death. Over the course of the film, no less than fifteen people are shot, stabbed, strangled, drowned, or suffocated, and yet the characters never react to the deaths with anything other than vague interest or mild annoyance. Everyone in the movie is either a murderer or has the potential to be one. No one behaves like a normal human being would in the circumstances, and this makes the film much more unpredictable and unsettling.

It's not just the acting, either. The cinematography is all browns, grays, and earthy colors, with an occaisonal startling splash of bright red (not blood; there is no blood anywhere in the film, despite all the death). There is virtually no music, except in a bizarre scene where Alphonse and the police chief visit a wealthy home and the chief is literally tortured by a string quintet. The scenes have little connection, and the motives of the characters are completely random, except for one person who I won't reveal. The closing scenes involve a bridge, a rowboat, and an ironic final twist that brings the plot in a macabre full circle. As the end credits roll, you feel unsatisfied because you're used to a conclusion that makes sense and wraps everything up. Oh, "Buffet Froid" wraps everything up, but definitely not in a happily-ever-after kind of way.

So, these are my thoughts on this peculiar little film. I recommend it to fans of surrealism and/or morbid humor. I can't say how much I "liked" it, but I admired its style and unapologetic ghoulishness. As long as France keeps making weird movies, I suppose I'll keep watching them. That is all.