Essentials: Belle de Jour

Year: 1967
Genre: Drama
Directed: Luis Bunuel
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Genevieve Page, Pierre Clementi, Francoise Fabian, Macha Meril, Muni, Maria Latour, Michel Charrel, Iska Khan, Claude Cerval
Production: Paris Film Productions

The silent era, the dawning of sound in film, the narrative complexities of Citizen Kane (1941), the rise and fall of the studio system, the Nouvelle Vogue, the novelty of the summer blockbuster and the increasing corporatism in Hollywood; auteur Luis Bunuel was around for all of that. Standing on the outside of film history, Bunuel never really considered himself a "filmmaker" but more of an artist who uses film as his means of expression. Most of his films were laden several layers deep with repeated narrative elements, incendiary attacks on social institutions, deeply personal musings and of course his trademark surrealism. Even today his films not only defy aspects of film form, but mock any notion of categorization. They're not films, they're defiant chuckles at the expense of the abyss.

Adrian Lyne: the only one who dared to remake a Kubrick film

Belle de Jour is the rebel director's most popular film and by all outward appearances his most commercial. A rundown of the plot reads like an Adrian Lyne film; Severine (Deneuve) a young but emotionally vacant housewife spends her afternoons as a prostitute. Yet what's lost in such a description is the film's oozing sexuality and festering indignation of Catholicism and haute bourgeois living. Not a single frame of Belle de Jour is filled with nudity yet everything is given a sexual dimension from the quiet demurs of a housewife's diligent sewing to the firm coaxing of Severine's madam (Page).

Deneuve in Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

The film in its initial run was no doubt helped at the box office by the presence of Catherine Deneuve, whose performance in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and followup work in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) have made her an international star. What brought her to Belle de Jour and Bunuel is a bit of a mystery but unlike some of Bunuel's leading ladies in other films, Deneuve is quite simply irreplaceable. She walks a razor-thin tightrope between dignity and depravity encompassing the troubling idiom "angel in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom" yet on her own terms. No doubt a lesser actress would fray to Bunuel's wearisome demands but with Deneuve it's hard to tell who's really controlling who. Keep in mind in several instances Severine fantasizes about being raped, beaten and whipped in dream sequences Deneuve had to perform. Anyone who can keep their dignity while being pelted with mud like that is certainly talented beyond most.

Unlike the equally engaging Viridiana (1961) and The Exterminating Angel (1962), Belle de Jour is at once more collaborative and more personal. Personal because the film certainly indulges in naked and prurient interests of the director. Yet collaborative because he's found an actress willing to explore human perversion in a way that goes beyond sharp and blustering mockery. Bunuel and Deneuve would team up once more for Tristana (1970) becoming one of the only leading lady repeat collaborators (a list whose only other inclusion is Silvia Pinal). As a followup, Tristana is certainly angrier yet in its petulance feels less layered by comparison.

Anyone intimidated by the expansive and critically irreproachable filmography of Luis Bunuel should seek Belle de Jour as an introduction. The film lies on the nexus between popular appeal, art-house, thinking-man's proclivities and the director's particular brand of madness. Furthermore, Catherine Deneuve is a game collaborator who at times steals the film to add some tasteful meta-text. Gloriously sexy, defiantly surreal and presented in luscious color for the first time in Bunuel's career, Belle de Jour is a must see for film fanatics.

Final Grade: A