Wednesday, May 24, 2017
144 - Belle Du Jour, 1967, France. Dir. Luis Bunuel.
Severine loves her husband.
She just finds no pleasure in their love life.
It is not his fault.
He is doing nothing wrongly.
She just feels a little frigid towards him.
He is good to her. He takes care of her. He is gentle with her. He attends to her.
He is a doctor, and he makes good money, and they live well.
She dresses like a fashion model.
She has freedom to do as she pleases.
Her life is good.
But she has these daydreams.
Fantasies.
Visions that take place in the previous century. With horses and carriages. And horse whips. And cow manure.
She is not quite sure what to do with them.
One of their friends, Henri Husson, offers to help her.
Husson is played by the great Michel Piccoli. His presence brings weight to this supporting role.
We have seen Piccoli in French Cancan (1955), Le Doulos (1963), and Contempt (1963). He later appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz (1972). He is one of those actors who improves a movie by stepping in front of the camera. He is alive today at 91, and his credits span from 1945 to 2015. Someone hire him!
One day at the tennis club Husson offers to have an affair with Severine.
She is disgusted. She is a good woman. Faithful. Virtuous.
That virtue is what attracts him to her.
But she does not want to have an affair.
She loves her husband.
Her friend Renee tells her a little gossip.
Their friend Mathilde has started working.
Working at a house. One of those houses that houses the oldest profession.
Severine is so virtuous that she did not realize that those houses still exist.
It takes four people to convince her otherwise. Renee, the taxi driver, Husson, and her husband Pierre.
They still exist. They have simply gone underground.
Severine visits a house.
She leaves.
She returns.
She leaves.
She returns.
Severine will work daily from 2:00 to 5:00. Never after 5:00. She must go home to her husband.
Her boss, Madame Anais, names her Belle Du Jour, "Woman of the Day," the opposite of a woman of the night, also meaning, "Beauty of the Day," a flower that blooms in the day time.
Severine grows used to it.
Her life at work begins to provide a release for the dreams she has been having.
The dreams begin to fade.
Her love life begins to improve.
She returns to her husband.
Things go well until two of her clients threaten to unbalance her world.
One is Husson. Husson himself comes to call at the house. Madame Anais and the girls recognize him as a former regular. Severine suspects he somehow knew about her and has come on purpose. He denies it.
The other is Marcel. Marcel is a 23-year old gangster-in-training who has a volcano of danger bubbling beneath the surface, ready to erupt. He grows a little obsessed. She quits over it. He no longer comes to call at the house.
So he comes to call at her house.
Uh-oh.
Bunuel the surrealist has made a mainstream movie.
With high-gloss production design. Locations, set pieces, wardrobe, color.
While throwing in his surrealist touches in the dream sequences. And in the ambiguous ending.
One scene fuses the dream and the reality. Severine is picked up on a café patio by a man who takes her to his country estate. With horses and a carriage. Is this the playing out of his fantasy? Or is it one of her dreams? Or both?
Severine is played by the one-and-only Catherine Deneuve.
Who looks fresh and pure as a daylilly.
She was already successful. Along with the fresh success of Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort, this movie hepled to make her an international star.
We have seen her in Repulsion (1965), The Last Metro (1980), and A Christmas Tale (2008). She is now 73 and working very steadily.
At the end of the day we are not quite sure what is happening to the woman of the day.
Is it real or is she dreaming? Or does she bring her dreams into reality with her husband? Or does she bring her husband into her dreams? Or was it all a dream?
Regardless, she appears happy.
Severine loves her husband.
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