Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel

Director: Louis Buñuel

Screenplay: Louis Buñuel

Running time: 1 hr 40 mins

Genre: French Film/Drama



CRITIQUE:


For a film that circles around impassioned eroticism, it’s strange, if not astonishing, to find Belle De Jour sexually tactful. That point, nevertheless, is not a flaw of the film but rather a subtle audience manipulation. Luis Buñuel, the renowned Spanish surrealist auteur, whose filmic oeuvre consist of sexual liaisons, fantasies, surrealist escapes, and out-of-this-world foibles, holds back the exploitative nature of this tale by not showing everything, but flirts around innuendos. This story of an attractive but bored housewife Severine, who’s sexually aloof and never sleeps with his casually handsome surgeon husband, is an egregiously sordid affair as she spends her freewheeling days in masochistic daydreams (the opener exhibits one of her fantasies, being tied and whipped by coach drivers in the presence of her husband after a languid afternoon coach ride) and becomes a daytime prostitute in an elegantly set-up bourgeoisie whorehouse. There are almost rabble-rousingly erotic scenes of Severine being roughly manhandled, a professor who prefers to be dominated, and a day-job of being the central object of a necrophile, which is the character of Duke aroused by the sight of corpses. Whilst objectively black, Buñuel doesn’t make these scenes crass exploitations but sidesteps sexual explicitness and makes importance of audience imagination. This element is central to Belle De Jour, where reality and fantasy collide with each other, shifting from Severine’s real sex-capades to her fantasies, from her carnal desires to the telling of her heart. Thanks then to Catherine Deneuve’s incredible performance, giving Severine a slice of sophistication and class. This French cinematic icon, impeccably dressed by Yves Saint Laurent, is not only gorgeously beatific, but also remarkably delivers a detached, icy wife whose inner desires baffles even her own psychology. The way she remains unmoving after being slapped into bed, her reluctance outside the Manais building, and her cool, effortless self-control as she walks into a room for sex are testaments to the versatility of this actress.


VERDICT:

Belle De Jour skirts around a potentially pornographic topic of masochistic sex, but remains tact, ingenious film of propositions. It is effective because it shows yet never tells – the secret of Buñuel’s mesmerising study into self-discovery that plays with our subconscious.



RATING: A-