Ridicule

Ridicule
by Patrice Leconte

List Price: ~~$19.99~~
Our Price: $17.99
You Save: $2.00 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $10.96 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD details

Actor: Bernard Giraudeau, Charles Berling, Fanny Ardant, Jean Rochefort, Judith Godr?che
Director: Patrice Leconte
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-01-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Miramax

DVD Reviews of Ridicule

DVD Review: Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars

beautiful everything, from the costumes to the dialogue to the scenery...a bit along the same vein as the count of monte cristo. an interesting study of the pettiness of humans

DVD Review: Great for teaching Pre-Revolution France!
Summary: 5 Stars

I use this movie each year in my Western Civ class to "set the stage" for our discussion of the French Revolution. The decadence and excessive luxury of the nobility contrasts starkly with the poverty of the peasants. Not to mention it has a great storyline that the students really enjoy! (And I don't mind watching it over and over)

DVD Review: Gross out warning
Summary: 2 Stars

Skip chapter one if you do not wish to see in explicit detail one man urinating on another. I found this to be extremely disgusting. You have been warned. I am surprised none of the other reviewers mentioned this.

DVD Review: The best French film you'll ever see!
Summary: 5 Stars

Rarely do we witness an impeccable work of Art. Social issues duly addressed, it also bemuses us, and shows mean and altruistic motives combined in every person, noble or wicked. It is true frivolity doesn't come off very well in this film, but I find the contrast between l'ing?nieur and la cour satisfying. I won't dance in our modern "cours" without having second thoughts from now on...

I love Jean Rochefort's roles, this one seems hand picked for him. Intelligence, restraint, frivolity and pragmatism alla Rousseau form this character. I'd love to have a guide in life like him!

Judith Godr?che's Mathilde de Bellegarde is fine. Probably too perfect, too much avant garde for the little education a woman was afforded at that time. But well, this and the fact that both father and daughter are "brilliant but poor" makes me wonder if this superb film does indeed have some elements of a feuilleton, of a pop novel. Like Cinderella, Lagardere and all its Hollywood variations, like, just to name one example, "Mona Lisa Smile". Mathilde said the cutting phrase I most liked of this film when observed that our hero started to like the corridors of power a bit for its own sake, mistaking his wit for his destiny. I wonder why Judith hasn't appeared on more quality films. Had her part been played by a lesser actress it would have brought the film to oblivion.

Madame de Blayac is just perfect. Beautiful, cunning, devoid of feelings. L'Abb? de l'Ep?e (Serpent) is extremely well thought of. De Bellegarde's words: "when he speaks, it's already too late" proved to be just too accurate. For some reason, the relationships between the two "Marquises" is at times like those middlebrow US films of boxers, from Rocky to "Million dollar baby". But I don't want to show a demeaning side of my favourite film, so I'll keep to the bright side :).

Music is, yes, PERFECT if you like the baroque. So is photography! The foggy duel with "L'Officier Duel", aerial views of "le marais" and some small moments, like the scene of the palace's flowers resembling it to a "The cure" song (an aspect S. Coppola's Marie Antoinette understood very well: the "modernity" of classic European culture). Any fool can film beauty at Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte. It takes a Leconte to show them under a new fresh light, "like if we had never seen them before".

As usual, Berling is fine. Some actors are born with "the gift"; it's obvious he's one of the chosen ones. Yes, this film is similar to "Dangerous Liaisons", but I find Ridicule is far superior for having likable characters and a human story to tell besides the "fireworks".

The storyboard is obviously perfect. C. O. DeRiemer in Amazon, "Terrell-4" at IMDb said something funny, in the spirit of the film, probably a good ending for this humble review. (On F. Ardant): "A man would be a fool not to want to bed Ardant, and even more a fool to trust her".

Enjoy!

PS: It's true that, as this reviewer writes, good command of French is in order if you want to follow this film. It would be like drowning in a marais.

No subtitle could do the job, and maybe only in French does detached verbal swordplay appear "refined" :).

DVD Review: An Addendum to "Off With Their Heads"
Summary: 5 Stars

H.M. Pyles's review "Off With Their Heads" is probably a more cogent plot synopsis than I would make time to write here, so I will forego the synopsis and refer the reader to his review for that. But I wanted to add a few comments about this film, which is a true favorite of mine... While not averse to foreign language films, I don't watch too many of them, probably for the reasons most movie-goers in America forego them: I want to watch rather than read when an actor is performing, and I know I'm losing some contextual nuances when I watch a film in a language where I am not totally fluent. But this is a wickedly entertaining film IN ADDITION to being a real morality play. The stunningly gorgeous and stunningly talented Fanny Ardant really shines in this film, and to my delight, gets lots of screen time. All of the acting is exceptional, as are the sets, costumes, et cetera.

Of course, there are a lot of differences between American and French cinema, as anyone who has seen even a few examples of French film will realize. However this film is particularly accessible to American audiences in a few ways... It is not terribly esoteric (like the Red, White and Blue trilogy, for example), so you don't have to struggle to understand the story as well as the language. It's very visually appealing, as I mentioned, and it also employs that favorite of American script scenarios, The Love Triangle. And the humor - caustic and costly as it is to the characters - really does keep one engaged. And because this is a French rather than Hollywood production, a happy ending is not guaranteed for all concerned. Therefore, if you want to know what happens next, you actually have to watch!

Buy this film. You will not experience buyer's - or viewer's - remorse!

Description of Ridicule

Nominated for an Academy Award(R) (Best Foreign Language Film, 1996) and honored by critics as one of the year's 10 best motion pictures, RIDICULE is an exceptionally entertaining tale of passion and deceit! In a desperate quest to save his hometown, a young man quickly learns that a sharp wit is the key to open any door in the Versailles court of Louis XVI! But his mission is complicated when he finds himself locked in a dangerous triangle with two very seductive ladies: a sophisticated older woman who can help him ... and an innocent young beauty with nothing to offer but her love! Wickedly funny humor and outstanding performances highlight this must-see triumph!

In Patrice Leconte's cool, precise moral comedy Ridicule, the corrupt, sycophantic court of King Louis XVI is invaded by a provincial nobleman, Ponceludon de Malavoy (Charles Berling), who with the help of his own sharp tongue, the coaching of the retired courtier Marquis de Bellegarde (Jean Rochefort), and the love of the Marquis's beautiful, nature-loving daughter (Judith Godr?che) hopes to win funds for his project to drain the fever-infested swamps of his homeland. But first he has to get by the cunning, sexually manipulative Madame de Blayac (Fanny Ardant, imperious and superb) and her waspish, priestly ally, the Abbot de Vilecourt (Bernard Giraudeau).

As shaped by screenwriter R?mi Waterhouse, Ridicule is a kind of dashing verbal swashbuckler in which duels aren't fought with swords, but with the equally fatal weapon of words--rapier wit in its most literal sense. Laconte directs with an appealing elegance and a scathing sobriety as he unfolds a fable that could just as easily take place in a Wall Street boardroom, a Park Avenue executive suite, or a Hollywood commissary. --Dave Kehr

General DVDs

DVD Video

Bestsellers in General DVDs

Life Is Beautiful
Release date: 1999-11-09; DVD
Best price: $9.28
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

I've Loved You So Long
Sony; Release date: 2009-03-03; DVD
Best price: $15.01
Price in other shops: ~~$28.96~~

Amelie
TAUTOU,AUDREY; Release date: 2002-07-16; DVD
Best price: $11.17
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Pan's Labyrinth
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-05-15; DVD
Best price: $2.37
Price in other shops: ~~$12.98~~

Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)
BINOCHE,JULIETTE; Release date: 2001-08-07; DVD
Best price: $4.74
Price in other shops: ~~$14.99~~

Martyrs
Release date: 2009-04-28; DVD
Best price: $13.95
Price in other shops: ~~$19.97~~

Tell No One
MPI; Release date: 2009-03-31; DVD
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops: ~~$27.98~~

The Ultimate Gift
Ultimate; Release date: 2007-08-21; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: ~~$14.98~~

Let The Right One In
Release date: 2009-03-10; DVD
Best price: $16.00
Price in other shops: ~~$26.98~~

Slumdog Millionaire
Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-03-31; DVD
Best price: $10.40
Price in other shops: ~~$29.98~~

Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs

Paris, Je T'Aime (Paris, I Love You)
Paris; Release date: 2007-11-13; DVD
Best price: $4.24
Price in other shops: ~~$9.98~~

Moliere
Sony; Release date: 2008-01-22; DVD
Best price: $9.85
Price in other shops: ~~$19.94~~

Camille Claudel
Release date: 2001-01-23; DVD
Best price: $7.11
Price in other shops: ~~$14.98~~

Amelie
TAUTOU,AUDREY; Release date: 2002-07-16; DVD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

La Vie en Rose (Extended Version)
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-11-13; DVD
Best price: $12.86
Price in other shops: ~~$27.95~~

Jean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (MGM World Films)
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-07-24; Published: 1987; DVD
Best price: $12.50
Price in other shops: ~~$19.98~~