A wealthy family hire a new housekeeper, who forms an unlikely alliance with the volatile local postmistress. What follows is one of the most electrifying films of the 1990s. Adapted from Ruth Rendell’s novel, La Cérémonie is Chabrol’s late masterpiece: a film in which class resentment accumulates with the terrible patience of a pressure cooker, before releasing itself in an act of violence that feels both shocking and inevitable. Screen: NFT1. Screening details: Special screening available; English language subtitles; Extended intro on queer Chabrol by academic Kit Francis Bradbury Rance.
