Belle de Jour
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Movie Reviews of Belle de Jour
Movie Review: Diary of a Cuckold
Summary: 5 Stars
Luis Buñuel's masterpiece. Catherine Deneuve is great as the phlegmatic wife who turns to prostitution to get her sexual kicks in the afternoons as the sultry, Belle de Jour. It's revealed through flashbacks that Belle de Jour was once molested as a child; and that her affinity towards ugly, nasty looking men is her way to redress that terrible experience and fill the void in her soul so that she can finally move on, mentally and emotionally, and have a normal relationship with her husband, whom she has not made love to ever since their wedding--which was over a year! The psychology of the film mirrors what is happening today in the adult film industry. Victims of sexual abuse turning towards the heartless world of "hardcore sex" as a way to seek pleasure without the pain of having to love. Her husband, who happens to be a doctor, doesn't necessarily neglect Belle de Jour, but treats her like a child. She looks up to him not as a husband but as a father. That is why Belle de Jour doesn't get aroused by him. But she does get aroused by a recurring dream in which her husband discards her to other men as if she were a slave. A slave trapped in the bourgeoisie world of "hi" and "bye" and "see you later, Alice." Belle de Jour is the woman you'd find at the checkout line wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. Her name is Melinda, and she is not thinking about tomorrow but of the mailman. Or, maybe, her husband's best friend, Mark. She desires motel sex. Her hips have a subdued swing when she walks, she's afraid of enticing the other rabbits in the field, for she knows that if a rabbit approaches her for some action, she will...say...yes. And sliding off her finger goes the wedding band, which she will hide deep inside her purse so that not even her jewelry would know who she really is...or isn't. Isn't that right, Melinda? "I see you're driving your daughter's brand new sports car. Where's the mini-van?...Oh, Charles is using it to take the kids out to the movies. How sweet of him. Well, then. If you have nothing to do this afternoon, perhaps we can..."Movie Review: Sexual Perversion or Enhancement
Summary: 5 Stars
Surrealism was an art movement particular to the 1930's. Max Ernst and the more famous Spanish painter Salvador Dali are the best examples of visual art lending to Freudian symbolism. The idea: we have a secret inner world of thought or memories hidden from our conscious world unless we remember and interpret our dreams, our mistakes, and our peculiar protocol of every day life. These snatches are the dirty little sexual secrets of incestuous desire and are the parts of suppression. We can't act out those secrets. Look what happened to Oedipus. He put out his eyes.
I wouldn't say that Catherine Deneuve is deadpan in her portrayal of a 23-year-old well to do wife of a physician as some reviewers are suggesting. She does have scenes of stress and anger, but Bunuel preferred under acting for his female protagonist and overacting for his villain-lover, young Marcel of the bad teeth and murderous swagger. Some women may prefer sex with killers as an enhancement? But Deneuve is blond-beautiful in a classy 1966 Parisian way. Her undergarments are strictly Victoria Secret of today. Pantyhose must have come in with the mini-skirt by late 1967, but these garments, the perversion of desire, are most revealing and most sensual. You won't run off howling at the moon after one of Belle de jour's liaisons, but an adventurous couple might wink at the varied possibilities of human sexual perversion or enhancement.
This is not French New Wave. I know many will not agree with me. This film, because it mixes fantasy with reality, or sexual role-playing with ordinary life, it is akin to the arts of the 1920's and 30's. There is much connection here to the silent films made in Germany between the wars. This is a very fine film.
Movie Review: A work of art...Brilliant!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Belle De Jour is not an easy film to explain; it is a rich, complicated and haunting work that defies explanation or sense. In short, the lovely Catherine Deneuve plays Severine, a bored housewife to a very handsome young surgeon who tries to fill the empty void in her life by becoming a prostitute during the day.
Just about everything in the film is open to interpretation, from the disturbing opening sequence to the beautiful conclusion. Bunuel's genius allows hom to stand back and let his audience fill the gaps in their imagination and, if necessary, implicate themselves. In Deneuve, director Bunuel has found a brilliant blank canvas for the audience to express themselves upon; never fully clear on her motivations (though some tantalizing flashbacks offer hints), she alternates between classic French coldness and classic French passion and though is always fully aware of how to manipulate the spell she's cast over you.
This is a great example of a master of cinema in deep collaboration with a master actress--their exploration of the female psyche runs the gamut of every possible emotion while never being crass or lowering themselves to merely reducing and simplifying.
Belle De Jour is a fine work of art, a grand and glorious film that is beautiful and breathtaking even today. The fact that it stands the test of time so well and maintains the power to shock, entertain, and make one think should make it an instant classic. This is a terrific film; erotic without sex and nudity; and powerful because of the exceptional performances. Be prepared to watch and want to have a long discussion afterward.
Movie Review: Michael's scholarly review of Severine's P.O. view.
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is a masterpice by Bunuel. Each shot is composed of beauty and elegance. With Catherine Deneuve dressed by Yves- Saint Laurent and the vacant and offsetting uses of time and characters, the film is way ahead of its time. Deneuve is the ultimate in young beauty ( her likeness only challenged by Cybil Shepard at the age of Taxi Driver ), and her sexual energy is bubbling on the screen. One can sense the genuiness of her repression of her true sexual desires. It is no doubt that Scorcese sees in this picture what someone brilliant like myself sees: a portrait of absolute excellence. There is not a bit of fluff or fat to spare as the clean and fluid form is revealed in Bunuel's unique cinematic style. The shots of women's legs...the ocean with "lovers" on the beach...the simpleness of gestures. The BFI book written by Wood always claims that She ( Severine ) is always looking outside of the frame for something, answers or whatnot. I think the opposite is happening. She is looking in while perhaps it appears her interest or perception shifts. Slowly, thoughout the film, her reality gets deeper, and there is no escape, and nothing outside exists at all.. this film will paralyze you...and like Pierre..you will need a wheelchair...Don't listen to the scholars about what Belle de Jour means. Some things are meant to be understood with the heart and not the head.Movie Review: Buñuel at his subversive best: Belle de jour.
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on Joseph Kessel's 1928 novel Belle De Jour, Luis Buñuel's best-known film tells the story of a beautiful young Paris housewife, Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) who, bored with her doctor husband Pierre (Jean Sorel), daydreams about masochistic sex. After a year of marriage, she is still a virgin. When a friend mentions a high-class Parisian brothel to Séverine, she decides to secretly work there during the afternoon. She agrees with the brothel's Madame Anaïs (Geneviève Page) to work only until five o'clock each day, so that she may return to her unknowing husband (hence her pseudonym, Belle de jour). Eventually, as one might guess, Séverine's double lives intersect. Deneuve brings a sublime performance of sophisticated sexuality to the film. Elegant, intellectual, and erotic, Belle de Jour reveals Buñuel at his subversive best.
G. Merritt