The Big Feast (La Grande Bouffe)

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Cast

Marcello Mastroianni
as Marcello

Michel Piccoli
as Michel

Philippe Noiret
as Philippe

Ugo Tognazzi
as Ugo

Monique Chaumette
as Madeleine

Andrea Ferreol
as Andrea

Solange Blondeau
as Danielle

Florence Giorgetti
as Anne

Michelle Alexandre

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Critic Reviews for The Big Feast (La Grande Bouffe)

Audience Reviews for The Big Feast (La Grande Bouffe)

• May 14, 2013

  Today was the third time I watched this movie over 40 years span! And it's still delightfully wickedly funny! This French-Italian film directed by Marco Ferreri deserves much more than it received from the audience. I still wonder why wasn't so popular in US because stars like Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret, should be famous there as well. They are from the top of the European acting class! And they showed why are they on the top. Marco Ferreri won the FIPRESCI Prize given by the International Federation of Film Critics at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival... and here on RT there is no rating for it!? Sad... In 2 hours and 15 minutes you have an avalanche of life happening around you in the story of four friends who gather in a villa for the weekend with the express purpose of eating themselves to death! Black humour, lots of indulgence, regrets, questions and half answers... Sex and overeating - is that what the life is all about? Watch this movie, and let me know!
  Panta O Super Reviewer
• Mar 21, 2012

  Dark and grotesque, just like Ferreri.
  Stefanie C Super Reviewer
• Mar 12, 2012

  "La Grande Bouffe" ("The Big Feast") is grandly overlong, considering it devotes 130 minutes to what amounts to a one-line plot (four men set out to eat themselves to death). This strange Marco Ferreri project gets labeled a black comedy, but where are the laughs? Beyond some spectacular fart jokes (the sound effects are strikingly realistic), this is a film centered on discomfort rather than humor. Certainly, the cast isn't the problem. The esteemed Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and Ugo Tognazzi play, respectively, a pilot, a TV host, a judge and a chef who meet one weekend at a country estate. But their cheerful getaway seems more and more peculiar, once time passes and we realize that the gang just never stops eating. Endless consumption of presented gourmet dishes accounts for most of the movie. So, unless you're keen to spend two hours watching some fine actors gnaw on every sort of greasy, gloppy, sticky food imaginable (do bread or vegetables appear onscreen at all?), expect to become reacquainted with your gag reflex. Even the sex scenes (naturally, the guys hire some female companions) are mechanical and unappealing. The film's repulsion factor would be more forgivable if the characterizations were solid. But these also disappoint. Little explanation is offered for the suicidal bent of these otherwise successful men. Their interest in prostitutes and free love suggests a parallel between their sexual and gastronomic appetites, but the script doesn't dig beyond this idea's surface. Luis Bunuel could have done better.
  

  Eric B Super Reviewer
• Feb 19, 2012

  Four men, one of whom is a master chef, check into a villa and resolve to eat themselves to death. It's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL meets LEAVING LAS VEGAS. Grotesque but oddly compelling, thanks to a dream cast including Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Picolli and Philippe Noiret.
  Greg S Super Reviewer

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