Le grande bouffe
By Charlotte Stace
La Filmoteca holds two screenings of the cult classic, La Grande Bouffe (1973). Directed by Marco Ferreri, the film stars some of Europe’s biggest actors of the 70s: Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Philippe Noiret, Michel Piccoli, Andréa Ferréol, and Solange Blondeau.
The film centres on a group of men who go to stay in a villa in the French countryside and plan to eat themselves to death. The aim is to provide a satirical account of consumerism and the decadence of the bourgeoisie. While the film was initially received controversially, it has later gained a cult status and is one of Ferrei’s most acclaimed films.
With the help of scriptwriter Rafael Azcona, Ferreri constructs a metaphor about the decline of our civilization, a theme which he continued to pursue in later films such as Ciao maschio (1978) and Il futuro è donna (1984).