The Ceremony (1980)

• 74%
• 1980
• Hugh Thompson

THE CEREMONY is a fantasy with all its attending elements of two-dimensional characters moving in pre-ordained patterns: a pretty bride venturing past her insecunties in order to engage herself in human communication; a detached groom who has lost touch with the origin of his need to ceremonially "play it cool," an obese priest whose gluttony and vomiting mirror his impotence both to give or receive; and an assortment of sometimes bizarre guests who, out of their needs and insecurities, carry out a ceremony all their own, touching here and there on the private ceremonies of the Bride, the Groom and the Prelate. Ceremonies are a way, sometimes agreed upon and sometimes not, of dealing with life situations. They seldom are a way of resolving those situations. Fantasies are our fears and wishes arguing with and sometimes defeating aspects of reality; they may afford insights but never a reality-based solution.