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Belle de Jour most definitely belongs to the realm of cinematic classics. It is arguably the most accessible of Bunuel's films and probably the best introduction to his work because it did for me. Séverine (Deneuve) has everything a young middle class woman is supposed to want. She has a handsome, caring doctor for a husband named Pierre (Sorel), a beautiful home, and plenty of fashionable clothing. But she is not happy. Her bland spouse treats her like a child, so she indulges in dark brutal fantasies filled with guilt, passion, and pain. Already inclined to sadomasochistic fantasies due to some unknown trauma in her past, Severine is increasingly drawn to acting upon her need for degradation. Bored with her life, she works during the afternoons at a brothel which caters to this proclivity, yet she is still the good bourgeois wife who informs her madam that she has to be home by five p.m. (her alias at the brothel is Belle de Jour, a pun on the French euphemism for prostitute, "belle de nuit"). She enjoys this double life until one of her customers, a gangster, becomes so obsessed with her to the point that he is determined to kill her husband. What follows next is a meditation on ambiguity on all levels. Severine is morally torn between living as an upper-class ice maiden and an abandoned fantasy woman. Although Severine is trying to stop her husband's murder, her efforts seem to be somewhat half-hearted, almost as if she is willing to tempt fate. Thanks to Sacha Vierny's stunning color cinematography, Yves Saint Laurent's couture and her own genes, Deneuve herself looks beautiful that even she seems unreal an indication of how beautiful Deneuve is in this film can be found by recalling Grace Kelly in her Hitchcock period. Finally, the narrative structure is strained by events to the point where the audience cannot be certain whether anything recounted in the course of the film belongs to the realm of the physical or the psychological -- not unlike life itself, at times. Towards the end of this film you'll come to fine out that Severine likes molestation. That is the heart of her perversity and the film's. It absolutely refuses to help us be good bourgeois. Bunuel's naturalistic style was subversive and sadistic. Its pitiless anti-aestheticism means you watch without painkillers. No ambivalence, no softening, no way out. Either you respond from your own perversity, or you check your watch.Read full review
Belle de Jour is an imaginative, nearly surrealistic, portrait of a conflicted wife who leads a clandestine life to fulfill her dream fantasies. The film is clever in its staging and flash-back approach and in many ways seems more like a French film than a Spanish one due to its subject matter and mis-en-scene, or setting. Always the creative master filmmaker, both the cinematography and scenario overflow with creativity. Catherine Denevue is very easy on the eyes as Bunuel's protagonist and fulfills her role with a believability and force of acting that complement the story. For fans of the legendary Bunuel this was a wonderful late-career addition to his long list of credits in world art cinema.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I have this film on video and it's also nice to have it on DVD,because I have a player with "zoom" control which allows me to enlarge the picture.Even though this film was made forty years ago,I cannot get over Catherine Deneuve's stunning beauty.Oh to be alive back then and to have known her intimately!If you've ever seen her,then you know what I'm talking about.If you haven't and you appreciate sexy women,then by all means get this film.She is definitely at her sexiest here and you won't be disappointed.
I bought this movie because it gave me a great impression, when saw it at the movie theater back in 1969. Has great quality and its a good piece.
an excellent value for the money
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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