Rating: 
Summary: "What are you thinking, Severine?"
Review: Luis Bunuel's masterpiece, "Belle de Jour," is the story of the secret life of a beautiful young married woman, Severine (Catherine Deneuve). On the surface, Severine appears to have a perfect, enviable life--she's married to a young handsome doctor, lives in a smart Parisian flat, has plenty of money, goes on holidays, wears [fine] clothing, and generally leads a life of leisure. But there's a problem....Severine's husband, Pierre (Jean Sorel) is vaguely aware that there's something wrong, but he can't identify the problem, and he isn't interested enough to pursue it. Severine sleeps in her narrow little bed, and Pierre sleeps in his. Pierre's amorous attempts are gently rebuffed with excuses, and he accepts it all with the idea that Severine will 'improve' in time--after all, they've only been married for a year. Pierre has no idea that while he is distracted by work demands, Severine is equally distracted by [] fantasies. Severine's vague, disconnected qualities rarely disrupt their lifestyle--even though her remoteness is glaringly obvious--most of the time she simply isn't mentally connected to the events taking place around her--she's absorbed in the [] fantasies that obsess her. Severine becomes obsessed with the idea of prostitution, and a chance conversation with an acquaintance, Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli) who has lascivious designs on Severine includes an address of a Parisian bordello he used to frequent. Severine seeks out the brothel, and promptly becomes "Belle de Jour"--the latest acquisition of the savvy Madame Anais. Severine, at first, extremely uncomfortable at the bordello, promptly fits right in, and soon she's smoking, lounging around in her undies, and lolling on the arm of whichever male buys her services. Severine in Belle de Jour is Catherine Deneuve's greatest role. Her icy beauty is perfect for "Belle de Jour" as it is easy to imagine her frigidity at home, and the cold icy passions that are just beneath her still, frozen surface. She is Pierre's perfect little dolly--beautiful to behold, but too troublesome to analyze. Henri Husson is another interesting character. He recognizes some unfathomable quality beneath Severine's calm demeanor, and he is attracted to her while lacking the ability to identify the depths of her dark secrets. Pierre Clementi is perfect as the nasty little thug, Marcel, who stumbles into the bordello only to become obsessed with Belle de Jour. He too wants to possess her perfection, and she is attracted to his savage depravity. Severine deftly manages her dual lives, and her immersion in one, compensates her in the other. Fantasies and a childhood flashback provide some clues to Severine's mystery. "Belle de Jour" is on my top ten film list, but it isn't for everyone. The film is rife with [] fantasies which usually seem to involve--amongst other things--Severine's debasement. Naturally this film is not for the kiddies--displacedhuman.
Rating:
Summary: Revolution by day-dream.
Review: 'Belle De Jour' opens with a woman being dragged out of a landau by her husband and two coachmen, pushed into a forest, tied to a tree, stripped, viciously whipped and then assaulted. This shocking display of male violence and female submission, implicating characters, director and (desiring male) viewer, will become the film's main theme, but not in the way it first appears. As the film continues, Severine, a frigid, bourgeois wife, will be splattered with excrement, will lie in a coffin to stimulate a role-playing Duke, will work as a prostitute during the day, where she will meet an abusive lover. She shares a name with the heroine of Sacher-Masoch's 'Venus In Furs', that classic text of masochism, the pleasure in being abused. These instances of degradation and humiliation, however, are the perverse means of her liberation. In her perfect bourgeois world, with her perfect, handsome bourgeois husband, their well-appointed apartment, maid, rich friends, tennis clubs, expensive holidays and glamorous clothes, Severine is infantilised, treated like a child. She is cossetted, every desire pandered to until she has no (speakable) desire. She is mostly silent, rejecting that language-trap created for adults. When she visits her husband at work, she is a nuisance to be gently removed. To regain or enact her desire, Severine becomes a prostitute. It is no accident in Bunuel that the worlds of sexuality and of work meet. In debasing her indolent bourgeois self, she finds her true self again. This split between middle-class courtesan and prostitute echoes the other splits in the film, that between mind and body, male and female, dream/fantasy and reality, past and present, city and country. Split, of course, is the wrong word - there are no absolutes in Bunuel, and these opposites meld and reinforce one another - as in a dream, every character, from the maid's child to the madame Anais to the diabolic Husson, is a plausible projection of Severine. Besides the fantasies of debasement and weird sex Severine indulges, are flashbacks to her childhood (or reimaginings of her past?), with incidents of paedophilia and sacrilege, Severine trying, as now, to resist male authority figures manipulating her 'innocence', sexually and socially. 'Belle De Jour' is seen as the opening gambit of Bunuel's celebrated late period, that series of glossy, big-budget, usually French films with big stars. But filming a glossy milieu is not the same as being a glossy film, and 'Belle', with the hard functionality of a Bresson, has the same mix of rigorous detachment, tight concentration and intense subversive subjectivity as Bunuel's best work, in this case surface smoothness being constantly broken down. In that first scene, we watch, without context, violence inflicted on a woman. Through the subsequent film, Severine will learn not only to look for herself (and see things we can't), but also take the power of shaping the film, blurring its boundaries. Catherine Deneuve's intensely private, unyielding performance is the film's soul, with only that famous smirk of satisfaction after the businessman with the unseen toy, tantalising us into answers. Though primarily a Surrealist social comedy, 'Belle De Jour' is also a Gothic film, from that opening Hammer-horror sequence; to its narrative fractured by dreams; to its interest in double identities, broken bodies and the conflict between desire and duty, sex and spirit, sex and death; to its castles and Sadean figures. But it is also a marvellously funny parody of Godard's 'Breathless' - the gangster sub-plot is announced by a seller barking 'New York Herald Tribune'; concerns a posing young hoodlum agonising over an unattainable woman; hinges on betrayal and a pastiche denouement that out-sillies the original. Godard would repay the favour later that year with his most Bunuellian film, 'Week End'.
Rating: 
Summary: A rather neglected history of the movie
Review: At the time Belle de Jour came out censorship was rampant everywhere, even in France. So the movie had to undergo a range of cuts depending on the countries where it was to be shown (usually in adult theaters). For the VHS version it seems the producers cut out all of the scenes that had once been censored and added some cuts of their own to make it acceptable everywhere, even on TV.
Of course in this way the viewer misses much of the sense of the movie. For instance, does anybody who saw the VHS (or the DVD) version know why Severine smiles after her meeting with the china man with his musical box?
Further it's true that the DVD looks like it originated from a much abused VHS copy with nothing apparently done to improve its quality. But to restore the movie close to the director's first intent you'd have to dig out what's left of the original materials (after so many years there might be a lot missing) and do a full re-editing job. Would it be worth it?
Rating: 
Summary: 5 Star Movie, 1 Star DVD
Review: The movie is a Bunuel classic. But the dvd looks horrible. Yes, it's an old film. But I refuse to believe that this is the best it can look. It's been said many times, but Criterion should have been the ones to handle this. There is a TON of dirt speckled all over the screen throughout the film. Scratches pop up WAY to often. The colors frequently change, fading or changing tint, during many scenes. There is an overall lack of sharpness as well. Basically, anything that could be wrong with the picture quality, is. It's watchable, and by all means worth renting. But I can't recommend buying it. One can only hope it is cleaned up and given better treatment at some point. But don't let the poor video quality stop you from viewing, or re-viewing, the movie. As has been pointed out by many others, there is no interview with Deneuve. However, at least there is a commentary track. While far from the best analytical commentary I've heard for an older film, this is still worth a listen. Julie Jones clearly knows her subject and she provides a very listenable track. Criterion has done such a bang up job with three other Bunuel classics, it's a shame that they weren't able to make this film look as fantastic as it probably can. With any luck, sometime in the future we'll see a much better transfer.
Rating:
Summary: Bunuel's Masterpiece of Elegant Perversity
Review: A maginificent erotic comedy. Bunuel directs with masterly assurance this icy comedy about a frigid housewife, Severine (Catherine Devenue) who goes to work at a Parisian brothel. Only here is she able to indulge in her masochistic desires by being forced to perform for her clientele. The sly joke is that her loving husband's patience and consideration is precisely NOT what she wants. She wants to keep her social respectability but needs the brothel as an outlet for her drives (Bunuel's point being the fairly well-worn one, even by that time, that bourgeois society has to suppress perversions and control female sexuality to maintain its power). What's amazing is Bunuel's "respectable" treatment of this material. His cool and discrete approach brillantly contrasts with the frustrated sexual lives and fantasies we see on the screen. Brief nudity, no explicit sexual scenes, everything is done through inference and association. And what associations! Bunuel's playful surrealism is in full force here - witness the mysterious box - and his cast brings this eroticized world to life (along with Deneuve, the best performance comes from Genevieve Page as the most refined house madam you'll ever see). "Belle de Jour" is masterful piece of latter-day surrealism: it's a wonderful demonstration of the emotional anarchy at the root of sexual longing and the particularly tortured outlets people use to satisfy their needs. And yet the whole enterprise is discreetly charming - it's light at heart. This has to be the most elegantly dirty movie ever made.
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Summary: when are we going to get the rest of bunuel on dvd
Review: cant really add anything to flanagan's superb review, but i do hope someone out there brings to dvd the likes of exterminating angel, the milky way, phantom of liberty, nazarin, tristana, and of couse the shorts he did with dali.
bunuel ranks up thee with fellini, chaplin, cocteau, and dreyer and is easily the greatest surrealist in the history of cinema.
it's time to give him his worth.
Rating:
Summary: Don't listen to the complaints; the quality is FINE
Review: First, let's get something straight: Belle de Jour was shot 35 years ago in France. It's just not ever going to look as clean, sharp, and saturated as a newer movie. Director Martin Scorsese (who spearheaded its re-release) is a purist; he would not want to artificially "enhance" the picture at the risk of distorting Luis Bunuel's original vision. Second, this DVD is non-anamorphic for very good reason: Belle de Jour was photographed in 1.66:1 widescreen. 16:9 enhancement would actually have CUT OFF some of the picture at the top and bottom. People who complain about the quality of this DVD simply don't know what they're talking about. As for the movie itself, Belle de Jour is one of the few films about eroticism that really gets it right - it knows that eroticism is in the mind, not the body. The always luminous Catherine Deneuve plays Severine - a woman whose life is at once picture-perfect and fundamentally empty. She is married to a good provider, the handsome but boring Pierre (Jean Sorel), and enjoys all the idle upper-middle class accouterments. But something is wrong in this greeting-card perfect world. Severine seems to find erotic satisfaction only in the repressed desire to be humilated and used sexually. She escapes into waking dreams where she enjoys being whipped, soiled with mud, and bound to trees. This lurid fantasy life leads her to seek employment as a part-time prostitute - but only during the day, before her husband gets home. Complications arise when her double life is discovered by her husband's friend Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli), and when she finds herself the subject of a stalker - a dangerously obsessed customer named Marcel (Pierre Clementi), who also happens to be a violence-prone thief. Though it sounds like fodder for a typical Hollywood "erotic thriller", what develops from these elements is a psychological study that, for all its depths, appears to remain moot about just what makes the main character tick. Central to the film is Deneuve's work. Under Luis Bunuel's precise, disciplined direction, she delivers a performance that is icy, opaque, and ultimately heartbeaking. Yes, she seems distant, and that is precisely the point: the much talked-about ending, by its very ambiguity, shocks us with the revelation that we've been fooled all along. Severine is not unreadable because she is hiding dark motivations. Rather, she is a dreamy, empty vessel; abused as a child (as we see in subtle flashbacks), and acting out of nothing more than instincts she can neither hope, nor care to understand. The lights are on and nobody's home. Her last, blissful smile as she enters one of the waking dream-states that pervade the film masks the hollowness of a human being squeezed dry of all her humanity by a life of denial, guilt, and empty materialism. It's an emotional sucker punch - a romantic banality that underscores with bitter irony what a sad, empty life Severine has, and the great damage that has been done to her. The tremendous harm that her own actions have caused by this point is just a tragic ricochet. All in all, Belle de Jour is a haunting piece of classic cinema. It may be Bunuel's masterpiece. It belongs in any serious movie fan's collection.
Rating:
Summary: Unique, Strange, and Memorable
Review: The premise of BELLE DU JOUR is well known. A young, beautiful, and slightly frigid doctor's wife (Catherine Deneuve) secretly harbors fantasies of being dominated, humiliated, and abused by her husband (Jean Sorel.) When these fantasies can no longer be denied, she becomes a prostitute under the sponsorship of a possibly lesbian madam (Geneviève Page), working during the afternoons while her husband is at his own work. Her sexuality is awakened by the sometimes brutish clients, who soon discover that "she likes it rough," and she is ultimately caught up a relationship with a truly dangerous client (Pierre Clémenti) whose possessiveness threatens to destroy both her and her husband. Throughout the film Deneuve slips in and out of memory and fantasy, sometimes recalling herself as a possibly molested child, sometimes imagining herself as the victim in a series of sexual assault fantasies. Director Bunuel, whose masterpiece this is, so blurs the line between memory, reality, and fantasy that by the film's conclusion one cannot be sure if some, most, or everything about the film has been Deneuve's fantasy. Although it includes a number of impressive performances (particularly by Geneviève Page, her girls, and their clients), BELLE is essentially Deneuve's film from start to finish, and she gives an astonishing performance that cannot be easily described. Like the film itself, it is a balancing act between fantasy and a plausible reality that may actually be nothing of the kind. Bunuel presents both her and the film as a whole in an almost clinical manner, and is less interested in gaining our sympathy for the character than in presenting her as an object for intellectual observation. Ultimately, BELLE DU JOUR seems to be about a lot of things, some of them obvious and some of them extremely subtle. And yet, given the way in which it undercuts its realities by blurring them with fantasy, it is also entirely possible that the film is not actually "about" anything except itself. Individuals who insist on clear-cut meanings and neatly wrapped conclusions will probably loathe it--but those prepared to accept the film on its own terms will find it a fascinating experience. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: okay
Review: Somewhat disappointed, very limited action, easy enough to follow.
Rating: 
Summary: Belle de Jour indeed!
Review: Luis Bunuel's classic "Belle de Jour" must have been enormously, outrageously shocking to audiences when it debuted in the late 1960s. It may well continue to shock today, although for completely different reasons. At the time, I suspect people objected to the idea that a woman would not only fantasize about debasing herself, but also actually act upon these desires. Now, the outrage would involve the concept that a woman would choose to do such a thing at all. Why, feminists would say today, when a woman can chose so many different outlets would she decide to subordinate herself to men? In a world highly charged with feminist influences, the story about a woman who attains sexual arousal only when strange men treat her like garbage would cause the most strident libber to cough and sputter with rage. Whatever the case, Bunuel's film is an interesting one to watch. I still cannot say whether I enjoyed it or not. My girlfriend, no frothing at the mouth feminist, found the film extremely tiresome. She almost fell asleep several times, and urged me to turn it off. Not a ringing endorsement, to be sure, but there are intriguing elements to the film well worth looking for if you try hard enough. Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) lives a posh existence. Her husband, a wealthy, busy doctor, is willing to buy his wife anything she desires. He even likes spending time with her on occasion, but he treats her like a child. It is obvious Severine finds her spouse boring in ways both sexual and emotional. As an outlet for her boredom, Serizy imagines elaborate fantasies involving whippings, rapes, and being splattered with mud. Why? Because Severine doesn't have the nerve to do something about her growing ennui. Life goes on as it always has until our heroine cannot stand it anymore. She finally goes into town and signs on as help at a local brothel, agreeing to turn up a few afternoons a week for several hours of degradation and debasement. It takes forever for Severine to fully engage her clients because she continually hesitates to follow through on her fantasies. After meeting with her first client, which turns out to be a total disaster, she stays away from the brothel for a few days. The fantasies and boredom of married life drive her back, however, and she soon racks up a list of clients who favor this emotionally frigid yet beautiful woman. Problems emerge when Severine enchants a violent thug named Marcel. Here's a customer Serizy can appreciate, a brutish lout who will fulfill her violent desires. Unfortunately, Marcel also has his own desires, namely obtaining Severine on a permanent basis. This won't work at all since Serizy never wishes to abandon her easy life with her wealthy husband. The criminal is not to be deterred as he stalks Severine and eventually discovers where she lives. A violent act committed against her husband, an act that leaves the man permanently scarred, leads to a sort of rapprochement at the end of the film between man and wife. At least I think it does. You're never exactly sure what is going on here because the director's use of surrealism blends reality with Severine's outrageous fantasies. The movie's moving along at a nice clip, you're following the plot, and suddenly there is a scene with Severine doing something naughty under a table. Huh? The mix of wild nonsense with conventional scenes isn't as bad as it sounds, though. In fact, it's often funny. "Belle de Jour" is the sort of film that necessitates multiple viewings. There is just too much going on here to absorb in a single sitting. I am not sure whether Bunuel was a communist or not, but I suspect the film is an artfully constructed attack on the European bourgeoisie. The director uses Severine as a symbol of upper class decadence, as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the wealthy. Here's a woman who seemingly has it all and yet she cannot find satisfaction in her life. Heck, she's only been married to her husband for a year and already she's looking for new thrills, new acquisitions. On the other hand, Marcel is your typical proletariat, a common man who is secure in his identity and in his desires. He should have spent his time attempting to destroy the bourgeois Severine instead of bedding her. As it is, his attempt to possess her leads to his destruction. Whatever this movie ultimately means-and there are plenty of interpretations out there awaiting your attention-Catherine Deneuve is amazing to watch in the role of Severine. She's a beautiful woman, and it's quite something to watch a woman who looks this good engage in these sorts of activities. The mud scene alone is worth the price of the film. The DVD is a mixed bag. The picture quality is awful considering how prized this film is to millions of cinema fans. I've seen the arguments about retaining the "purity" of Bunuel's best-known film, but the grain, streaks, and general haphazardness of the presentation made me wonder why a Criterion treatment for "Belle de Jour" isn't in the works. What would the film really lose if the techies made a once over on the negative? At least the transfer is in widescreen, with a commentary by a Bunuel student and some trailers thrown in for good measure. When it comes right down to it, I would watch "Belle de Jour" again. It's a movie interesting enough to merit subsequent viewings if for no other reason than to try and get to the bottom of just what Bunuel was trying to say.
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