Main Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviève Page, Macha Meril, Francisco Rabal, Pierre Clémenti
Release Year: 1967
Country: FR/IT
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Buñuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighboring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality dichotomy extends to the final scenes, in which we are offered two possible endings. Thanks to a question of copyright and ownership, Belle de Jour disappeared from view shortly after its 1967 release, not even resurfacing on videotape. When it was reissued theatrically in 1994, many critics placed the perplexing but mesmerizing film on their lists of that year's best films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Luis Buñuel's first film in color, Belle de Jour also kicked off the last phase of his great career, which produced some of his most popular films (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire). Catherine Deneuve serves Buñuel here as Grace Kelly did Alfred Hitchcock, as the glacially beautiful blonde who is barely concealing smoldering desires. Séverine, Deneuve's character, finds that marriage is not the beginning of contentment, but a key which unlocks the doors of her abusive past to allow her imagination to run unfettered. How many of the film's events are "real" is left up to the viewer; Buñuel clearly wants to blur the distinctions between Séverine's erotic dreams and her attempts to fulfill them. A lesser filmmaker would wallow in the prurience of the story of a sexually frustrated wife turning to prostitution; for Buñuel, however, making films about sex is about exploring much more than human desire and physical contact. What makes his approach unique is its playfulness; he can have it both ways, provoking the audience one moment and winking the next, as if to say, "This thing we call life, it's a big joke, isn't it?" ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Francis Blanche - Monsieur Adolphe; Françoise Fabian - Charlotte; Maria Latour - Mathilde; Claude Cerval; Michel Charrel - Footman; Dominique Dandrieux - Severine as a child; Marc Eyraud - Barman; Bernard Fresson - Le Grêle; Iska Khan - Asian client; François Maistre - L'ensignant; Georges Marchal - The Duke; Muni - Pallas; Bernard Musson - Majordomo; Brigitte Parmentier - Severine as a child; Marcel Charvey - Professor Henri
Belle de jour is a 1967French film starring Catherine Deneuve as a woman who decides to spend her days as a prostitute while her husband is at work. The title is the French name of the daylily (literally: "daylight beauty"), a flower that blooms only during the day, but also refers to a prostitute whose trade is conducted in daytime. The film was directed by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel. American director Martin Scorsese promoted a 2002 release of the film on DVD.
Séverine Serizy is a young, beautiful housewife who has masochistic daydream fantasies about elaborate floggings and bondage. She is married to a doctor (Jean Sorel) and loves him, but cannot share physical intimacy with him. A male friend, Monsieur Husson, (Michel Piccoli) mentions a high-class brothel to Séverine, also confessing his desire for her, and she secretly manages to work at the brothel during the afternoon (using the pseudonym Belle de jour). The brothel is run by Madame Anaïs, (Geneviève Page). Séverine will work only from two to five o'clock each day, returning to her blissfully unaware husband in the evening, but she attends only intermittently.
As the film progresses, Séverine becomes entangled with Marcel, a young gangster, who offers her the thrills and excitement contained in her fantasies. The situation becomes more complicated when Séverine decides to leave the brothel, with Madame Anaïs' agreement, after finding Marcel has become too demanding, and jealous of her husband. Husson has also discovered her secret as a potential, though unwilling, client. One of the gangster's associates tracks Séverine to her home address. Marcel visits her, and threatens to reveal her hidden identity, but Séverine persuades him to leave.
He waits outside for her husband to return home and shoots him three times before escaping and eventually being shot by the police. Séverine's husband survives the event, but is left in a coma. The police are unable to find a motive for the attempted murder of Séverine's husband, but after he leaves hospital, now blind and in a wheelchair, Husson visits him and may have told him the truth.
The film ends with Séverine escaping into fantasy once more; this time, however, there are no sexual undertones. Her husband is healthy again and they kiss before looking out the window on to the opening scene of the film.
