framptonhollis One description of 'Belle de jour' that I read described the film, at some point, as being like a daydream. Nothing could be closer to the truth. Bunuel, Bunuel, Bunuel! One of cinema's all time greats, and a personal favorite filmmaker of mine for a few years now! 'Belle de jour' may be his greatest masterpiece, although I personally do prefer the likes of 'L'age d'Or', 'Viridiana', and 'Simon of the Desert', I feel like 'Belle de jour' can certainly be considered the most genuinely high quality film in his prolific and more than impressive cinematic oeuvre. It contains many of the elements that make Bunuel such a beloved and brilliant artist; the humor is there, the tragedy/drama is there, the strange sexual content is there, and the classic sense of surrealism all his greatest films have utilized so wonderfully is perfected here. This is Bunuel at the top of his game, blurring the already-blurry lines between cinematic fantasy and cinematic reality, playing w/flashbacks and dream sequences and never keeping absurdity out of the question no matter the setting or situation. And sexuality is portrayed with as much confusion and wild surrealist hijinks as is necessary when attempting to explore such a mess of a topic. Few filmmakers (or artists, whether they be authors or painters or whatever, for that matter) can depict sexuality quite like Bunuel can. 'Belle de jour' harkens back to Bunuel's much earlier masterpiece, 'L'age d'Or', which depicted sex w/a raging sort of surrealist accuracy that struck something in people, turning them angrily against him and his work, making them set fires to some cinemas in which it played, banning his obscene and blasphemous black comedy of horrors, and 'Belle de jour' may strike a similar emotional reaction to those of a more archaic sensibility, and the same energy said archaic-types may muster up in response may be utilized by film lovers across the globe to tear their hearts out in gripping love and admiration for Bunuel and this fantastical film!

daphnexulu Bunuel delivers a beautiful story through symbolism, dream sequences and complex character narrative. Belle de Jour- on the surface -could be viewed as an "easy watch", yet digging deeper it hints at the surrealistic values of the director. Although this is regarded as one of Bunuel''s most popular films, I feel it lacks the depth and value that his earlier films boast. Though it is a classic, I don't think it's a masterpiece. This film is a great watch for both those studying film or seeking entertainment.

pyrocitor Godard may have quipped that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun, but Luis Buñuel knew better: all you need to make a movie is a girl and her imagination. Picture this: opening credits beckon us in to a peaceful, aristocratic countryside carriage ride, with almost histrionically dull effete banter between suave, chirpy husband (Jean Sorel; exquisitely bland) and stony, disaffected wife (Catherine Deneuvre). But don't worry - the drolleries only last minutes before they're interrupted by a rape and bondage sequence orchestrated with carnivalesque bounciness, making it almost as disturbingly cheery as it is jarring. It's polarizing, distanciating, and risks losing any particularly prim viewers within the first five minutes. And, naturally, it's completely false. And thus, having successfully doubly(!) yanked the rug out from under us within roughly the first five minutes, the only thing we know to be real about Buñuel's Belle de Jour is its commitment to falsehoods - and therein lies its playful, magnetic, fascination that lingers more than any voyeuristic titillation.Belle de Jour is still regarded, doubtlessly with a nervous chuckle in some circles, as one of the earliest films conflating eroticism and artistry. Yet it's shy even for the swinging' 60s in terms of depicting actual sex on screen - cleverly, Buñuel realizes that for us, as for Deneuvre's bored-housewife-turned-high-class-prostitute Séverine, sex is best when left up to the imagination. But the film is anything but shy in its voracious, almost fidget-inducing satire of antiquated, monolithic gender roles, with Séverine's stagnant facade of happy upper-class home life being the film's most brazen illusion of all, and her escape into the equally constraining and prescriptive role of men's sexual fetish object in an attempt to actualize her lurid fantasies evoking a sour laugh in itself. Over time, Buñuel's slow-born critique unearths a viciously tongue-in-cheek account of the dissonance between Séverine tentatively but aggressively trying to wrestle her own meaning out of a life full of people trying to dictate hers - her husband, society, their pretentiously aristocratic neighbours, especially Michel Piccoli's eloquently unrepentant horndog - with the results being as sordidly funny, and, inevitably, deeply sad as anyone would expect. Pacing is appropriately dreamy, verging the line of excessively languid, but Buñuel packs each frame with tantalizingly subtle details of characterization and foreshadowing, keeping the fantasy/reality playfully hazy throughout. Some, like Roger Ebert, point to the subtlest of sound cues to differentiate the two, but it's just as possible these are as much of a red herring as any of the film's more prurient interchanges. Each of 'Belle de Jour''s colourful trysts allow for gleefully salacious scene-stealing bits, most memorably a teasing "what's in the box?" moment that Mr. Quentin Tarantino, amongst countless others, can thank Buñuel for (and here, like its homage in Pulp Fiction, the answer is fiendishly simple: it's whatever you want it to be). Like any self-respecting French film from the '60s there are gangsters, as cartoonishly grotesque as they are impossibly slick, particularly Pierre Clémenti's sulky, cane-wielding vampire. And then: that legendarily ambiguous ending, the film's most innocuously and and subtly perverse of all. Unless, of course, it's just another rug-yank, that Buñuel, that scoundrel, never quite shows his hand with. Perhaps, it's simply macrocosmic of the earlier mystery box: it's whatever we want it (or most fear it) to be. Still, the film reaches the annals of legend almost singularly through Catherine Deneuvre's rivetingly inaccessible performance. It takes an actor of rare talent who can anchor a film of guiding an audience through every scene while remaining so impenetrably deadpan, but Deneuvre's cool, chic glassiness bleeds out just enough flints of a vast inner world of yearning and desire that even she may not be fully privy to. She barely speaks throughout the film, but her eyes and the smallest moments of relaxing her shoulders are more subtly revelatory than the most stentorian soliloquies, the delicate power therein making her work here truly unforgettable. Based on Joseph Kessel's novel, Buñuel's Belle de Jour's play with sexual, ideological restriction and release is too sharp not to have inspired a number of real life accounts. Most vocal about her experiences is Brooke Magnati, who herself reappropriated the titular billing for a series of books based on her own call-girl experience as an upper- echelon prostitute while completing her PhD which, naturally, are themselves now being adapted into a film. Fantasy inspiring fantasy inspiring reality inspiring fantasy? Sounds about right.-9/10

ma-cortes This is a typical Buñuel film , as there is a lot of symbolism and surrealism , including mockery or wholesale review upon sexual behaviors . Luis Bunuel's Masterpiece of Erotica in which deals with a frigid young housewife , a virginal newlywed named Severine (Catherine Deneuve) married to a prestigious surgeon called Pierre (Jean Sorel) . She fantasizes about masochistic scenes with male people . Severine and Pierre's friend Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli) and his spouse Renee (Macha Meril) are usually having lunch together , then , Renee tells Séverine that their acquaintance Henriette is working in a brothel . Severine get the address of a high-class whorehouse in Paris and visits Madam Anais , she then decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute unbeknownst to her patient husband . As Severine works at her obsessive profession only from two to five . Surrealism and sour portrait upon higher classes, masochism , kinky sex , prostitution and sexual rites by the Spanish maestro of surrealism , the great Luis Buñuel . In most subtitled versions of the film, an italicized font is used to help the audience spot Séverine's fantasies from reality . According to Luis Buñuel scholar Julie Jones, Buñuel once said that he himself didn't know what the end exactly means . Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both subversive behavior and religion , issues well shown in a lot of films and that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . Interesting and thought-provoking screenplay from the same Luis Buñuel and Jean Claude Carriere , Buñuel's usual screenwriter based on the novel by Joseph Kessel ,; they pull of a straight-faced treatment of shocking subject matter . After returning his native country, Spain, by making ¨Viridiana¨ this film was prohibited on the grounds of blasphemy as well as ¨The milky way¨ or Via Lactea , both of them were strongly prohibited by Spanish censorship . ¨Belle De Jour¨ is packed with surreal moments , criticism , absurd situations , masochism ; furthermore Buñuel satirizes and he carries out outright attacks to aristocracy , sadism and pro-sexual freedom . ¨Belle De Jour" is a day lily in French, a flower that blooms only by day, as Severine is available only during the afternoons. "Belle De Jour" is also a sort of pun, as it reminds us of "belle de nuit", an euphemism for prostitute . Deneuve's finest most enigmatic acting . Catherine Deneuve's famous buckled shoes were designed by Roger Vivier and her glamorous gowns by Ives Saint Laurent . Pretty good support cast gives fine acting ; it is mostly formed by nice French actors such as Michel Piccoli as Henri Husson , Geneviève Page as Madame Anais , Pierre Clémenti s Marcel , Françoise Fabian as Charlotte , Macha Méril as Renee and special mention to Spanish Francisco Rabal who played various Buñuel films such as Nazarin and Viridiana . In addition , Luis Buñuel cameo : Sitting in the outdoor café when the Duke gets off his carriage. Thid wry and disturbing motion picture was compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time . This Buñuel's strange film belongs to his French second period ; in fact , it's plenty of known French actors . As Buñuel subsequently emigrated from Mexico to France where filmed other excellent movies . After moving to Paris , at the beginning Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs , including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein . With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot . The following year , sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first picture , the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career . That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War , where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨ , as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros . He subsequently went on his Mexican period he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in ¨Los Olvidados¨ (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries , though many of them are well worth seeking out . As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz" , ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ , ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . And finally his French-Spanish period in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière with notorious as well as polemic films such as ¨Viridiana¨ , Tristana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" , this ¨Belle De Jou¨ and his last picture , "That Obscure Object of Desire" . .