Belle de Jour

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Film Description

Perhaps the most accessible of all Bunuel's films, with Deneuve almost doll-like, tiptoeing her way through a series of masochistic sexual fantasies, as a housewife who becomes a high class prostitute. Strange, sometimes beautiful, sometimes funny, always fascinating.

Film Information

DVD Extras

Histoire du Film documentary about Belle De Jour (30 mins); Trailer; Commentary from Spanish Cinema expert Professor Peter William Evans.

Technical Details

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3 Stills

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Reviews & Articles

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Review by Chris Jones on 3rd August 2004

Bunuel's kinky classic still seems as fresh and strangely erotic as it must have done in 1967. The glacially beautiful Deneuve is perfectly cast as frigid housewife Severine whose erotic fantasies become (literally) flesh when she becomes the eponymous ultimate high class call girl of the title. From the famous opening, an erotic and deeply controversial fantasy sequence (Denueve enjoying a kind of S&M with mudslinging thrown in for good measure!) to the deceptively simple early sequences, where Bunuel sketches precisely how the 'perfect couple' set-up of Severine and her boring bourgeois life is a sham (stunning cinematography at the ski resort here, and throughout, by Sacha Vierny), this is a film that sets out to shock in the quietly surrealist way that only Bunuel can. Of the various clients that Severine entertains, all with their own hilariously weird sexual peccadilloes, my favourite is the Chinaman with the buzzing 'erotic box'.

Of all Bunuel's late masterpieces, this is the one that most perfectly combines the anarchic surrealism of the early films with the detached savaging of the bourgeoisie that marks the last works. And all masterpieces, it rewards multiple viewings. Catherine Deneuve is astonishing too in arguably her finest performance.

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Article - "Catherine Deneuve" by David Parkinson
Monday 3rd October 2005

Since making her screen debut 49 years ago at the age of 13, Catherine Deneuve has been one of France's most prolific and consistent actresses. Dismayingly few of the near 100 features she has made have reached this country, but a pleasing number are currently availa...  View article in full

Article - "Luis Bunuel" by Andrew Hoellering
Saturday 1st April 2006

In Chien Andalou (1928) and L’Age d’Or (1930) Buñuel first enacted the surreal vision which never left him. He aimed to shock the viewer into a new awareness, omitting anything that could be explained or rationalised. What started as youthful jeu d’espr...  View article in full

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