Review of Belle de Jour (1967) by Giuseppe P — 02 Mar 2010

Luis Bunuel's famous bourgeois erotic drama still has the ability to shock, but not like it did in 1967, when seeing beautiful, virginal Catherine Deneuve get horse-whipped by stage drivers, or spattered with mud by her husband in self-pleasing dream sequences, was quite the scandal.

Today we marvel at Bunuel's pure mastery of the cinematic form, telling a story about a repressed woman's desire for sexual exploration in a Parisian whorehouse, with only the sharpest wit and satire to fall back on, suggesting through brief memory flashbacks (and those famous erotic dream sequences) the guilt and ways of Deneuve's psyche.

Bunuel would flower this style to even greater heights in his following French films, especially the surreal "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", but this remains a linchpin in his canon.