A masterpiece that the public avoids! Catch up on this serious, surreal comedy now!

In 1979, after the success of Make Your Handkerchiefs and its 1.3 million hits, Bertrand Blier gave us one of his most radical films: Cold Buffet!

Splendor Films offers to re-release this grandiose and absurd work, because only the French director has the secret. Thus, viewers will be able to (re)discover this great classic in a restored 4K version.

The story introduces Alphonse Traum (Gérard Depardieu), an unemployed thirtysomething who never leaves Dana. One evening, he walks into an abandoned RER station in Paris, where he meets an accountant.

He finds him killed with his own knife some time later. The only resident of the tower with his wife, he soon meets his new neighbors, the police commissioner and the murderer. He very quickly finds himself involved in a series of murders.

César for Best Screenplay In 1980, The Cold Buffet brings together a wonderful line-up of great actors: Gérard Depardieu, Jean Carme, Bernard Blier, Michel Serault and Carole Bouquet.

Bertrand Blier considers “Cold Buffet” to be his most technically successful film. Paradoxically, it was the one that took him the least time. “I increasingly doubt the things I understand so well”– says Blier.

The latter wrote this surreal story in one step inspired by the persona of Gerard Depardieu. The idea of ​​a character who would always have a knife in his coat pocket, a coat he would never take off.

When it launched in December 1979, Cold Buffet attracted just 777,000 people in France, including 250,000 in Paris. The film is a commercial failure for Bertrand Blier; The fiasco is all the more severe because at the time, the few viewers who went to see the film, most often demanded a refund, as after a bad performance.

Misunderstood, Blier’s work fortunately has its share of supporters who quickly establish its reputation as a cult film. “The original idea was gratuitous killing. Genre: I’ve got a knife in my hand; I’m holding it in my stomach; how does that affect you?”– explained the director in his autobiography.

BLIER, GÉGÉ and dreams

In addition, the idea was embodied by the choice of Depardieu in the role of Alphonse. At that time, Blair had a recurring dream: he was chased and arrested by the police.

“It happened to me a bit after I started taking sleeping pills. Depardieu made this fantasy his own. Of all the actors I know, Gérard is the only one who can play this role. He is the knife-man. Par perfectly.”The director emphasized.

In addition, in life he always has a knife in his pocket or in his hand. He’s cutting branches or something. So Depardieu (hero-actor) appropriated my idea of ​​gratuitous killing and I embroidered it. Says murders says corpses, who says corpses says cops, who says cops, etc.Blair said.

If it is shunned by the public, the feature film is welcomed by the critics of the time. For Le Monde, for example, the main quality of the film lies in the fact that it “A change from the usual refrains of French cinema. Cold buffet is irrelevant, earthy, ordinary, delirious and completely gratuitous.”

A few years later, the work became a classic of black humor, and Jean Toulard praised it in his Movie guide.

“This feature film, with its unusual, illogical, disturbing black humor that flirts with surrealism, is a nightmarish plunge into our dehumanized world, where fear and loneliness are our concrete cities and our desolate villages. A comedy, often very funny, that sends shivers down the spine.”

Cold Buffet hits theaters in a restored 4K version on April 26.