Belle de Jour (1967)

To Author: SanTropez_Couch who did not understand Luis Buñuel's Belle De Jour

I have just read your review on Belle De Jour. I do not wish to bash it, I just want you to become aware of a few things since you obviously share an enthusiasm in film. Hopefully you will be able to understand Luis Buñuel a little better. First of all you wrote "It's not a masterwork," but this film is a masterwork. Why else would Martin Scorsese present it? You talked about being puzzled by the films weaving in and out of dream sequences, and that perhaps David Lynch would be able to do a more masterful job. You have to understand that Buñuel does this intentionally. He is a man who tries not to have a lot of logic in the story line of his movies. (Check out Phantom of Liberty) However there is a lot of symbolism that you missed in the film. It takes reading and maturity to find out what Buñuel is all about. The film is unclear weather the ending is a reality or fantasy. Even Buñuel himself said he did not know. If you wanted to make this film make sense it would kill what is great about it. Most people do not understand Buñuel that will and criticize him for doing something spectacular outside of the logical Hollywood system which people are use to. You also wrote "The film isn't very engaging visually." I have to disagree again. Look at the way Buñuel shots only Catherine Deneueve's feet in one of the earlier scenes before she enters the brothel. This is genius. Without showing concern on her face or through dialogue for that matter, he shows us what she is feeling through the actions of her walking. He does this again later in the film. Also you have to look Catherine Deneueve's apartment in this film, a very bourgeoisie like style which Buñuel likes to criticize. You can see how empty Catherine Deneueve's marriage to Marcel is. You really need to read up on Buñuel before you can criticize him like this. I'm not meaning to be rude either. I had no idea what was going on when I first watched this film. You should watch his first film ever made Un chien andalou. He made the movie have no logical sense at all.

Cheers,

Fmovies: Luis Bunuel, notorious for his use of simple, striking, yet un-cannily affecting surrealism in movies, keeps it down to a lower (yet still imaginative) key for Belle Du Jour. This works though because un-like a film like Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie where surrealism was like another character amidst the other character's dreams and nightmares, this one only keeps in surrealism for the sake of the lead character's inner demons poking up through the every-day malaise. This lead, Severine, is played in one of Catherine Deneuve's key career performances, that finds that two-sided-ness she feels while married to her husband Pierre.

She loves him, but there's something that she's not getting out of the marriage that's leaving her empty, aimless, and her fantasies- however in the realm of (dark) fantasy- go to show she needs to do something during the day. She then finds out about a high-class brothel with only a couple of workers already employed. At first reluctant, she gives in to her temptations, serving the odder types of Paris looking for a good time, with one of them, Marcel (Pierre Clementi) falling head over heels for her.

What seemed most intriguing about the film was how Bunuel dealt with the themes- the two crucial ones being morality and sexuality. His imagery is direct, maybe too direct, but it gets its points across with a realism that is alluring and far & away (almost like a satire of such a life). She can't stop what she's started, and she doesn't really know how to end it unless she gets caught.

Then with the sexuality, it's never over-emphasized (i.e. no nudity, outside of a quick couple of shots of nudity), and no one is shown having sex on screen. What comes out is the emotional tally of Severine, the other girls, and the supporting characters that come in and out of the brothel. It may seem dated at moments, and the observatory notes go to making the film seem a tad longer than it is. But never-the-less, Belle de Jour is a worthwhile, memorable effort of the 1960's cinema.

And, at many times, it's quite funny. More than that, a laugh riot.

'Belle de Jour' is Buñuel at his weirdest: the Spanish master builds this movie on the relationship between the fantasy of conscious and unconscious dreams and reality. The dreamer is the beautiful Séverine (the magnificent Catherine Deneuve) a petite bourgeois woman trapped in a dull marriage which leads her to strive for something else, first in fantasy, and then in outright real life. Séverine's dreams are vividly sexual: the opening scene marks the tone of the movie and the character as she dreams with being raped, spanked and humiliated while her angered husband watches. Throughout the rest of the movie, Séverine will be trying to make these fantasies come true in a brothel she starts working at… or is she? This is what's fun in Buñuel's movie: it's impossible to tell fiction from fact.

Séverine is the heart and soul of 'Belle de Jour:' her journey through her own sexuality is riveting; she starts with as a repressed woman who's having marital problems, probably due to sex. As a way to get out of her dull life she starts working at a brothel during daytime, hence her nickname 'beautiful by day.' Some of the episodes at the brothel are funny: her first attempt at playing a dominatrix is an embarrassing experience for the poor Séverine who's not accustomed to the relationship between dominator/dominated; her experience with a creepy Asian client is highly enigmatic, mainly because of the famous and mysterious box the client brings… whatever it is, it seems to bring Séverine a lot of pleasure. Her she participates in a role-playing situation with a rich enigmatic man who asks her to perform a dead woman in a bizarre ritual/funeral scene… the level of insinuations this scene creates in one's mind is outstanding! Meanwhile, amidst all the pleasure, Séverine is haunted with a sense of guilt and shame as she keeps imagining herself being punished by her husband and his best friend. She ponders leaving the brothel until a new client, arrives and she's immediately attracted to him.

Pierre Cleménti was an outstanding revelation: although I had unknowingly seen him once before in Bertolucci's 'The Comformist' as the homosexual driver Lino, I certainly noticed him in this movie: he's a fascinating combination of style and substance with his amazing performance, playing the sophisticated, leather-wearing, cane-wielding, gold-toothed young criminal, Marcel, meeting Séverine when celebrating a successful bank heist. His obsession for her grows to fantastic proportions culminating in the unexpected tragedy of the third act. The end of the movie is perhaps the weirdest part of the narrative, the one where all interpretations become valid; it's also a great send-up on happy endings, and a fine conclusion to a thriller if this movie were a thriller… Buñuel is just genius!

"Belle de Jour" is a funny, tragic, and ultimately unique movie. I had the opportunity to watch it at a theatre room last year and obviously I felt the pleasure of seeing this bizarre masterpiece as all movies should be seen: on the big screen. I'll certainly feel the lack when I have to watch it on TV one day.

Belle de Jour fmovies. My other favorite Bunuel films, _The Exterminating Angel_ and _The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie_, are in some ways social satires surrealistically told. _Belle de Jour_, however, is much more of a purely surreal work, which is appropriate since it is about two of the most surreal of subjects: power, and sex. Don't watch it expecting psychedelic camera tricks and Freudian dream sequences - Bunuel is much too controlled for trickery, and much too tricky to allow you to calmly map out what is real and what is not. And don't expect to know exactly what has happened at the end or even to remember the film clearly later. Each time I see it again I discovered that that the film has somehow reassembled itself in my memory, so each viewing is fresh and surprising. Even if you don't give a tinker's melted watch about surrealism, and don't care to puzzle out reality from fantasy, there's still much to like here: frequent droll humor, a little bit of titillation, and a good performance from an incredibly beautiful young Catherine Deneuve. Watch it with someone you love.

Deneuve plays Séverine Serizy, a bored middle-class woman who never slept with her handsome husband Pierre (Jean Sorel). She eventually adopts a double life on weekday afternoons as a hooker… Here she explores the depths of her desires with her amazing sexual inhibitions… Although the film resolves around her goings-on at a high-class brothel, real nudity and sex are never shown…

"Belle de Jour" may seem one of the most mysterious, poetic, and provoking films ever made… Producing a body of work unparalleled in its wealth of meaning and its ability to surprise and shock, Buñuel leads us into a new world arousing wonder and astonishment, depravity and pleasure, weird and entertaining…

Sèverine is perfect, she's Catherine Deneuve. She consciously inhabits her subconscious and the comings and goings are tinted with pristine, erotic decadence. Her perfection includes outrage without rage, panic without fear. Having or not having is the question she never asks. Her husband Pierre, the exquisite Jean Sorel, is like one of her garments. There, stunning, understated, reliable, existing without existing. Marcel, in the other hand, the riveting Pierre Clementi, seems determined to provoke. Provoke what? Where is that need creeping from? I love to meander through "Belle de Jour" allowing Luis Bunuel to have his fun. He deserves it. His puzzle is just that, a puzzle and his genius, challenge us to find the non existent pieces. The pieces are ours coming from our own wishes, wantings and longings.