Review of Belle de Jour (1967) by Ryan H — 18 Oct 2012

With all the praise, I found Belle de Jour to be great but a little disappointing. As a piece of erotic cinema that's sexy and doesn't show a single moment of flat out nudity, this is top notch.

If that sounds boring, then don't watch it. Severine is a frigid young wife who sleeps in a different bed than her husband. He doesn't always want to have sex with her, but even when he wants to lie down with her she tells him no.

So why does she choose to be a prostitute? There are a couple of flashbacks that show her uncle molested her and the day she refused to take the bread at her first communion. I wish there were more of these.

I felt like it was starting to explain Severine, but they just stop. We also get to see her sexual fantasies, such as her husband tying her up and whipping her, which actually comes back and bookends the film with Severine dreaming that her husband is no longer paralyzed and they are on the same carriage riding on the same road once again.

That's the whole point of this film, I guess. Sometimes you act on things that make you feel good instead of things that are right. Severine wasn't too bright by going to the up-scale brothel that Pierre's friend, Henri, tells her about.

So go figure when he finds her there one day. There are three clients that we see Severine with. One is a strange man who wants to roleplay as if he's her employee who has done a bad job. Another is a fat asian man who wants god knows what.

And then there's the boy who falls in love with Severine who becomes angry when she leaves the brothel and he's jealous of her husband. This is why he shoots him in the end. And Henri comes by to tell Pierre exactly what Severine has been doing.

Pierre's paralyzed and deserves the truth as to what happened. If there was more characterization and motives behind Severine's character then I probably would have absolutely loved the film. But as is, it's on the way to greatness then stops when it's nearly there.