Although it's based on a novel about an upper-crust housewife who prostitutes in the afternoon, Bunuel's erotic masterpiece is really an ode to one's fetishes.
Brilliant piece of cinematic art. Catherine Deneuve is Severine, a middle class women and sexually frigid wife to doctor Pierre. Unable to succumb to intimacies with her husband, she escapes to a world of illusions and fantascies where her husband is dominearing, abusive and generally masochistic in his behaviour towards her. Hearing of a local brothel, Severine understands her fantascies can no longer be denied and becomes a prostitute at such brothel. Then the film just keeps getting better and better, I won't spoil it but its definitely one worth seeing.
Absolutely marvellous erotic/sensual film which leaves everything to the audience, no explicitness, that's what makes it one to see. I'm giving it 5, just for being so brilliantly weird and wonderful.
The winner of Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1967 is an outstanding masterpiece. An ordinary problem, the housewife who's get bored, is shown from the brilliant visual Bunuel's eyes. It is show the essential things from what the plot want from the spectators. The fetishes don't miss, so the ensemble of things plus the actions the the emotions of the characters create the perfect ambient from what Bunuel intend to do. We see a young Catherine Deneuve in one of her best role! Her face mimic reflect not only the emotions that she had in that moment, but also the kind of relations with she found with others. The sound of the bells announce the dream, and the desires. Her experience evolve, and the indirect purpose is to become like in her dreams, not only spiritual but physical. In the end we have this sound, and Severine looking at the horses which produce it. I put myself a question, that depends the human nature: will became Severine the perfect housewife for a cripple housebound because she isn't in the carriage like at the beginning of the movie?
It sheds some light on the stereotype of the woman who loves to get mistreated. How can you separate sex from love? Perhaps it comes from a rigid catholic upbringing. Séverine poses as having a disdain for men in "reality" and appears frigid to her loving husband. Her daydreams about getting tortured and exposed to the world as how she really sees herself show she has a low self-esteem beneath her fabricated image and tempt her to live her fantasies at a brothel. The guilt and her better comprehension of men's lust give her an excuse to give in to her husband. By the end, the perverted man appears to have better principles than her...
Catherine Deneuve is amazing (and BEAUTIFUL) in this sad, but interesting look into what is sometime s"brewing" behing the shimmering facafdes of a "happy marriage".
i love catherine deneuve, she always gives awesome performances. in this film, she makes no exception as a bored housewife who goes into a brothel during the day to try to achieve her fantasies. i also like the surrealism that luis bunuel provides... you end up a bit confused at the end and it leaves some space for the viewer to try to understand it by itself.
Severine is a beautiful young woman married to a doctor. She loves her husband dearly, but cannot bring herself to be physically intimate with him. She indulges instead in vivid, kinky, erotic fantasies to entertain her sexual desires. Eventually she becomes a prostitute, working in a brothel in the afternoons while remaining chaste in her marriage
There will be no in depth review as I usually do as I don't have the time and just don't want to do one.
Belle de jour, is regarded as a masterpiece but I just didn't see it. However the colours used in the photography are stunning, which fits perfectly with the film's subject. Some of the flashbacks are a little confusing at times, but again this is a Luis Bunel film....that is to be expected. The film really doesn't stand the test of time and doesn't realte to a modern society. However it's a good film and definatly check it out to see a Bunel film and a film considered one of the best French films around.
Unfortunatly I'm torn with this film. Bits I enjoyed, bits I didn't. Perhaps I might watch this again in the future and change my mind.
They say it's a classic, and I can see how it would have been shocking in its day. Watching it in 2007, Deneuve's character is uneven and uninteresting.
Very naughty French housewife seeks excitement outside her marriage. It's great noir, the ending is weird; however, there's lots of both style and grit to make it interesting. Soak it up.
Buñuel's erotic, perverse and surreal tale focuses on the life of a bored young french beauty and her hunger for love. great performance by the gorgeous icy-blond Catherine Deneuve.
I absolutely loved this movie. Besides the fact that I am a huge Francophile and Deneuve fan, I just found this movie riveting! There are so many different opinions on what the ending is. Where it starts, ends, is the movie a complete fantasy. It is completely the kind of movie that will make you think about it for days and weeks to come. You will need to see it over and over again. A must see just to see a most gorgeous young Catherine Deneuve.
If Catherine Deneuve born in this era, I think Angelina Jolie couldn't be famous until nowadays. She's so charming, gorgeous and fantastic.
I cannot believe this 60s film can be so modern, it's about a woman who's boring her wedding life with work-crazy husband, so she go out and work as a part-time prostitute!!
After that, we'll see how cripple this society is.
Catherine Deneuve at her finest. She gives an excellent performance and looks flawlessly beautiful. In my opinion, "Belle De Jour" is Buñuel's best film. (And certainly my personal favorite)
Luis Buñuel directs a solid and powerful film. The story of a housewife who decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute because her husband could not fit her needs for degradation. Buñuel work is incredible and done tastefully. Catherine Deneuve's performance is spectacular. A must see for fans of the erotic, "escapse from reality", genres.
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