Belle toujours

It's always nice to fallow the evolution of some characters through the years from films to films. You have the impression to see old friends again after a long separation. But there, the separation was really very long, and years go by, everyone got old and tired. All you got at the end of this meeting is the sad feeling that 38 years after having lost contact, it was quite useless to meet again, for you don't have anything to say to this characters anymore.

In 1967, Louis Bunuel filmed a terrible story of a perverse woman beautifully played by Catherine Deneuve. 38 years later, Michel Piccoli, who played in the original movie a friend of Deneuve's husband, assists to a endlessly concert of Dvorak, where he sees the ex-Bunuel character. In old time's sake, he'll want to invite her to diner, but she doesn't really have a nice souvenir of their relationship. And she claims that time changes her a lot : and indeed, Severine, formerly known as Caterine Deneuve, has now become Bulle Augier (but she's quite credible in old-young Deneuve).

It's really sad to see that in this false sequel the trouble, the wit and the intelligence of Bunuel are replaced by a boring feeling and an excessive slow motion impression. Beside a tasteful mute diner scene between the two mythical characters, even the most passionate cinephile will have trouble to find anything consistent in this repetitive style exercise. He'll just be surprised in front of this plain interpretation of "Belle de jour", and be amazed by the incoherences. Henry Husson bought for example Severine the strange box a mysterious Asian character brought when he met her years ago : but how can he know this kind of details, when he was merely an external observer of her life ?

No wonder why Catherine Deneuve run away in front of this inconsistence and quite lazy movie. But man can wonder why the critics praise this movie when "Belle Toujours" is obviously a minor piece in Oliveira's impressive filmography.

Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour is a classic of 1960s dark comedy, with the touches of surrealism that made the director such a house-hold name (for art-film households anyway) and had a seductive, sometimes cold but never less than interesting performance from Catherine Deneuve as Severine, who spends her days as a hooker in a brothel while her husband doesn't know. You may or may not recall Michel Piccoli was in the film as well, and had a pivotal moment - following being the one who originally gave Severine directions to the brothel - who may or may not have told her husband. Bunuel was smart and clever and right enough to not show us this conversation, only Severine seeing a single tear running down his cheek. We can read into it whatever we wish, which was the sly gift from the mater.

The (now late) director Manoel de Oliveira decided in 2006, at the age of 100, to make a sort of "homage" to Bunuel and his collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere by making what is in all actuality a sequel to that film, where Piccoli's character Husson sees Severine at a classical music concert, tries to follow/track her down, and then when he does has dinner with her to talk about things. Will he finally tell her what she said? In truth, does it matter either way, one might ask? Certainly de Oliveira doesn't care.

Despite an opening sequence at this concert hall that is simple and magnetic and wonderful to sit through - maybe in large part due to the music itself from Dvorak being so powerful - and a final dinner scene that has a couple of nice visual touches, this is just not that interesting. It doesn't work that Deneuve isn't back as Severine; I'm sure the director would argue this is a further homage to Bunuel (two actresses were used in That Obscure Object of Desire), but it just feels off seeing another actress there, who doesn't have the same looks (Deneuve, at her age today, is still astonishing looking by the way). The film is a scant 70 minutes long - 65 not counting credits - and it still feels padded out with scenes of watching characters eat their dinner, the waiters cleaning up, and lots of walking around.

Belle toujours wasn't a bad idea, per-say. Revisiting such memorable characters years later and giving a new perspective could be captivating or enlightening, and as a stand-alone short film it could have worked (imagine, for example, if Husson and Severine meet right after the concert hall and grab a bite and talk, you cut out ALL of the mid-section and don't really miss much at all, other characters here are inconsequential really). At the same time, it was hard for me to also grasp what the "homage" was ultimately. There are two Bunuelian moments of surrealism, one involving a golden horse statue outside in Paris that may have real eyes (this works because there's build-up as Piccoli is staring at it), and another with a chicken that is just weird but weird for weird's sake, if that makes sense.

The performances aren't terrible, and some of the camera-work is fine, but the film has not much reason to justify its existence. And the mystery and fun of Belle de Jour was that it was kept in its own, satirical 1960's Parisian world. Maybe there's something to be said about the nature of remembering things and how time changes people, but that feels weak here too. Again, as a short, this might be worthwhile. At 70 minutes, somehow, it feels too long. Not to mention, perhaps a nitpick but something I caught on to as this WAS a 100 year old director, all of the sound is turned up really high on things that don't matter.

If you've been waiting to hear Michel Piccoli gulp his whiskey and chew his food, this is the movie for you I guess.

Our film festival in Vancouver keeps bringing his films (which I have sat through a few and never been impressed), so he must be a critic's darling, but this is terribly dull.

I agree completely with Moustache review. Someone else suggested Elegant, but Decadent might be closer to the mark. What does an old man make a film about? An old man, of course! Not that an old man can't be interesting of course, but he seems to have nothing to say that I can decipher. There's certainly no fire in the belly, candles burning out would be closer! The female lead is completely successful, but I can certainly see why Catherine Deneuve would have given this a pass! Edward Dardis Van BC

But not succeeding anyway. Buñuel was a genius and de Oliveira only a very talented movie director. A parenthesis to say that for you to understand fully this movie you must have seen Buñuel's movie "Belle de Jour" which dates from the sixties of last century. This movie now aspires (as some kind of homage to Buñuel's work) to be some kind of continuation of the latter but a feeble one indeed. Those who have seen Buñuel's movie probably will remember the story: a beautiful woman (Catherine Deneuve then) who loves her husband has however some masochist tendency which pulls her to prostitute herself in a luxury brothel. Buñuel tells this story brilliantly in images and dialogues diving deeply in the arcana of the human soul. De Oliveira's movie profits (or tries to profit) from that story by concocting a supposed not very meaningful end to it (which becomes a poor open end after all). The story of the movie we are reviewing now is based in the encounter many years later of the woman of the first movie (Bulle Ogier now who resembles Catherine Deneuve as much as a screech-owl resembles a dove)and a close friend (Michel Piccoli) of her and her (now already deceased) husband, who tries to convince her to have dinner with him in a private room in a posh restaurant by promising to tell her if he had or not told her husband at the time of the events above mentioned, about her behaviour also above described. This has not much interest in itself as the continuation of Buñuel's story to be given as the climax in de Oliveira's movie. To the movie's credit however we may refer the excellent performance of Michel Piccoli, a few nice images of Paris and some beautiful interiors and visual details and the smooth visual development of the story showing the de Oliveira's real talent in what regards movie's and actor's direction. And that's all.

I remember reading somewhere that Oliveira's film works as a symbol of the impossible reconciliation between past and present, between cinema (with its passion for manipulation) and reality (with its relentless curiosity for the truth), two dimensions that clash irremediably in modern times.

Personally, I found this to be a excellent comedy, full of delicious winks to symbolic surrealism (the Joan of arc statue, the rooster scene!), a mayor work in Oliveiras impressive catalog and a proper tribute to Buñuel's work. It's a bit sad that it has been terribly underrated by "major" critics around the globe (Cahiers, etc.) *Taken from a comment I made to filmref.com