There was something about the 1960s that brought out a playfulness in filmmakers which allowed them to not have to condescend to audiences and wrap up every little aspect of the film in a neat little bow. When the films' techniques and narrative strengths worked, as in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, or Ingmar Bergman's Persona, the result was a great film. When neither worked, the result was a pretentious mess, like Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby or Luis Buñuel's Belle De Jour- his 1967 foray into color film, based upon the same titled novel of Joseph Kessler, released in 1928.
The film has been described as an 'erotic masterpiece,' but forty years later one is left with a film that has so little sex in it that it could pass as a PG film if released today, as well as lacking all eros. Mild sex scenes are not, by definition, eros, and it's difficult to believe that anyone watching this film could have been shocked, much less aroused by a single scene in it. Yes, young Catherine Deneuve, as bored bourgeois hausfrau Séverine Serizy, is her typical gorgeous self, but having seen her in several of her later roles, plus her featured role in Roman Polanski's Repulsion, I seriously must question whether she could really act. In Polanski's film, she plays a neurotic, sexually stifled woman who sleepwalks through her descent to murderess, after what was likely a childhood of sexual abuse. Similarly, her character of Séverine was sexually abused (seen through flashbacks, and after which she refuses communion), but unlike the Repulsion heroine/villain, is not repulsed by raw sex, but attracted to the filthy sadomasochistic aspects of it . Had Bergman made this film it would have been far subtler and better. That Alfred Hitchcock, by contrast, loved this film, says a lot, for his own films were equally dependent upon hamhanded views of sexuality, and most are equally outdated, as well, for that very reason. Apologists for the film claim that it allows viewers to bring their own thoughts and experiences into the film. Well, most films do, so that's not a great argument. Belle De Jour fails for the opposite reason; it lacks a core- emotionally, philosophically, and technically, masquing it all with claims of Surrealism- that label used to cover and alibi for all manner of bad art.
In short, this film does not even walk the walk, and Buñuel is not in a league with such filmmakers as Werner Herzog nor Antonioni, as far as symbolism goes. Belle De Jour may have titillated audiences four decades ago, but today it simply plays out as a wan and silly- as well as poorly wrought, exploration of a dull woman's sexual life, and how that keeps her deluded and miserable. One need not pay to see such, when a trip to the local supermarket can give you dozens of more interesting female subjects to choose from.
The film has been described as an 'erotic masterpiece,' but forty years later one is left with a film that has so little sex in it that it could pass as a PG film if released today, as well as lacking all eros. Mild sex scenes are not, by definition, eros, and it's difficult to believe that anyone watching this film could have been shocked, much less aroused by a single scene in it. Yes, young Catherine Deneuve, as bored bourgeois hausfrau Séverine Serizy, is her typical gorgeous self, but having seen her in several of her later roles, plus her featured role in Roman Polanski's Repulsion, I seriously must question whether she could really act. In Polanski's film, she plays a neurotic, sexually stifled woman who sleepwalks through her descent to murderess, after what was likely a childhood of sexual abuse. Similarly, her character of Séverine was sexually abused (seen through flashbacks, and after which she refuses communion), but unlike the Repulsion heroine/villain, is not repulsed by raw sex, but attracted to the filthy sadomasochistic aspects of it . Had Bergman made this film it would have been far subtler and better. That Alfred Hitchcock, by contrast, loved this film, says a lot, for his own films were equally dependent upon hamhanded views of sexuality, and most are equally outdated, as well, for that very reason. Apologists for the film claim that it allows viewers to bring their own thoughts and experiences into the film. Well, most films do, so that's not a great argument. Belle De Jour fails for the opposite reason; it lacks a core- emotionally, philosophically, and technically, masquing it all with claims of Surrealism- that label used to cover and alibi for all manner of bad art.
In short, this film does not even walk the walk, and Buñuel is not in a league with such filmmakers as Werner Herzog nor Antonioni, as far as symbolism goes. Belle De Jour may have titillated audiences four decades ago, but today it simply plays out as a wan and silly- as well as poorly wrought, exploration of a dull woman's sexual life, and how that keeps her deluded and miserable. One need not pay to see such, when a trip to the local supermarket can give you dozens of more interesting female subjects to choose from.