Belle de jour - Schöne des Tages

"Belle de Jour" is generally considered to be director Luis Bunuel's masterpiece; a surprisingly revealing and seemingly personal venture into the world of eroticism and its deviances. It's a truly surrealistic exercise in ambiguity, fantasy, and reality. The line that separates them is blurred so much that the famously mysterious ending has had critics arguing for decades over its meaning.

The fantasy sequences are usually signalled by the sound of carriage bells, but by the end of the film the viewer is no longer able to differentiate between what is another one of Severine's fantasies and what is reality. Even Bunuel admitted to not knowing himself. He said that "by the end, the real and imaginary fuse; for me they form the same thing." The gorgeous Catherine Deneuve, resplendent in her icy prime, portrays Severine Sevigny, the middle-class wife of Pierre, a doctor. She is frigid, virginal, yet seemingly happy enough in her bourgeoisie life and its trappings. However, upon hearing about a local clandestine brothel from a friend, she pays a visit to the madame, and becomes a prostitute, going by the name of "Belle de Jour", as she can only work in the afternoons. She apparently fully realizes and enjoys her sexuality, despite her guilty conscience, exclaiming that she "can't help it". She certainly doesn't need the money. She's bored with her life and her marriage, needing a "firm hand" to lead her; a need which the madame, Anais, who is obviously attracted to her, almost immediately recognizes. Her sweet and conventional husband is unaware, treating her much like a child, and the audience cannot help but believe that even if he knew of her true nature, he would not understand or empathize. She keeps her two worlds neatly separate until a patron of hers (whom she herself enjoys) becomes obsessed with her, and all is threatened.

That Alfred Hithcock in particular admired this film comes as no surprise to me; Deneuve would have been the perfect Hitchcock heroine: an icy blonde who becomes "a whore in the bedroom", as Hitchock was fond of saying he preferred in his leading ladies. But this remark is not meant to simplify the story, its telling, or Deneuve's remarkable performance, which is what truly draws the viewer into the film.

"Belle de Jour" was Bunuel's first foray into the use of color, and he employed it to great effect. From the fall colors displayed in the landscape scenes, to the subtle shades in Deneuve's clothing, the contrasts are set. While the world around her explodes in glorious hues, Deneuve's character is defined by her couture, if staid, wardrobe of tan, black, and white.

"Belle de Jour" was unreleased for many years due to copyright problems, but finally re-released in 1995 through the efforts of director Martin Scorcese, and released on DVD in 2003. I've watched it twice in the past week and am still at a loss to describe it very well; suffice to say that I am in awe. It's an amazingly erotic film without any explicitness, and one that I expect hasn't lost any of its effect over the years. As the subject matter is handled very tactfully and without any actual sex scenes; a great deal is left to the viewer's imagination - which only serves the heighten the mysteries inherent at every turn in the film. The viewer is however drawn into the sense of feeling to be a voyeur into Severine's secret life; the careful choreography of scenes and camera angles contribute to the uncomfortable sense of intrusion by us, the viewers.

There are many sub-stories and small mysteries in the film; for instance one of the most widely debated upon by critics is the mystery of "what is in the Asian client's little box?" that he presents first to one prostitute, who quickly refuses, then to Severine, who tentatively agrees. All the audience know is that it's something with a insect-like noise, and when the client leaves, Severine is sprawled face-down upon the bed, the sheets thrown about, and obviously pleased with whatever took place in the interim.

"Belle de Jour" was awarded the Golden Lion at the 1967 Venice Film Festival, as well as the award for Best Foreign Film in 1968 from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Interesting side notes: Bunuel himself had a shoe fetish, which helps explain the numerous shots of Deneuve's beautifully clad feet throughout the film, and the fact that every time she goes shopping, she buys shoes. He also appears in the film in a cameo as a cafe patron, and in another scene his hands are shown loading a gun.

The premise of BELLE DU JOUR is well known. A young, beautiful, and slightly frigid doctor's wife (Catherine Deneuve) secretly harbors fantasies of being dominated, humiliated, and abused by her husband (Jean Sorel.) When these fantasies can no longer be denied, she becomes a prostitute under the sponsorship of a possibly lesbian madam (Geneviève Page), working during the afternoons while her husband is at his own work. Her sexuality is awakened by the sometimes brutish clients, who soon discover that "she likes it rough," and she is ultimately caught up a relationship with a truly dangerous client (Pierre Clémenti) whose possessiveness threatens to destroy both her and her husband.

Throughout the film Deneuve slips in and out of memory and fantasy, sometimes recalling herself as a possibly molested child, sometimes imagining herself as the victim in a series of sexual assault fantasies. Director Bunuel, whose masterpiece this is, so blurs the line between memory, reality, and fantasy that by the film's conclusion one cannot be sure if some, most, or everything about the film has been Deneuve's fantasy.

Although it includes a number of impressive performances (particularly by Geneviève Page, her girls, and their clients), BELLE is essentially Deneuve's film from start to finish, and she gives an astonishing performance that cannot be easily described. Like the film itself, it is a balancing act between fantasy and a plausible reality that may actually be nothing of the kind. Bunuel presents both her and the film as a whole in an almost clinical manner, and is less interested in gaining our sympathy for the character than in presenting her as an object for intellectual observation.

Ultimately, BELLE DU JOUR seems to be about a lot of things, some of them obvious and some of them extremely subtle. And yet, given the way in which it undercuts its realities by blurring them with fantasy, it is also entirely possible that the film is not actually "about" anything except itself. Individuals who insist on clear-cut meanings and neatly wrapped conclusions will probably loathe it--but those prepared to accept the film on its own terms will find it a fascinating experience. Recommended.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

The always provocative Luis Buñuel directed (and co-wrote with Jean-Claude Carrière) this adaptation of Joseph Kessel's 1928 novel, about the beautiful, apparently frigid 23 year-old wife (Catherine Deneuve) of a surgeon (Jean Sorel) who decides to live her fantasies at a brothel in the afternoons.

Here, as in several of his films, Buñuel makes a sharp, often disturbing, sometimes darkly funny, and always provocative meditation on the lifelessness of the French bourgeoisie, focusing on the boredom and private rebellion of a young woman so absorbed in her own fantasies that we don't know if what we are seeing is actually happening or only taking place in Severine's mind. Deneuve, gorgeous as ever, flawlessly plays Severine with a cold distance which is nothing short of intriguing. A character which could have easily been turned into a caricature, Deneuve makes Severine come alive in flesh and quiet desperation.

Although more discreetly than in some of his other films, here Buñuel also criticizes - with symbols, allegories, some subtler than others - the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church as an institution. His hand of surrealism, social and religious provocation make for a film that, over four decades after its release, remains strange, somewhat disturbing, and energetic. Severine is not a heroine or an activist for anything, but her rebellion is about her own deathly bourgeois condition. Prostitution here is never glamorized (even though, unlike the other prostitutes in the film, Severine is not doing it for the money - she doesn't need it); the clients are hideous-looking, quite often creepy and violent. Severine needs an escape from her suffocating life, and in her fantasies, the rougher, the better. If being a rebel is defying some sort of establishment (for whatever reason), then Severine is definitely a rebel figure; she defied not only society's moral grounds of decency (albeit slyly), but also her own inner demons. The answers to whether Severine's rebellion was worth anything is for the spectator to decide - and there lies the richness of Buñuel's surrealist creation. 10/10.

'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.

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