Review of Belle de Jour (1967) by Jake R — 16 Aug 2009

'Luis Bunuel', to the average movie fan, conjures two things: the bit where some guy cuts a woman's eye in half in 'Un Chien Andalou' and 'Belle de Jour', that film about high class hookers. Of course, both of these stories belay incredibly different truths about their origins, and while Bunuel's 1928 weird-fest lingers as a collage of crazy imagery, 'Belle de Jour' survives as a much more potent bundle.

The sexual revolution was in full swing by 1967. The same year Mike Nicholl's iconic milf-movie 'The Graduate' was released, which explored different types of sex as well as the actual action of coitus itself. Thinking that Bunuel would have made little more than a tableaux of uncomfortable strange sexual imagery, while there is a substantial amount of surrealism, this is a more conventional affair than one might think.

The story is on par with what 'Midnight Cowboy' would be a few years later, about a person dragged into the seedy world of sexual employment, but whereas Schlesinger's characters were forced out of financial poverty, Deneuve's Severine experiments because of an emotional drought. Locked in a frustratingly sterile marriage, quite suitably, to a doctor, it's little wonder the young, luminous Severine is desperate for some kind of release. Normally, this takes the form of naughty daydreams, where she is humiliated and/or tortured; it's attention, and any form of attention is a good thing. Which is why Severine is irresistibly drawn to becoming a prostitute, because here the men are paying for the opportunity to spend time with her and to just be with her. Severine instantly blocks out the physical side and concentrates solely on the men's attitudes, as does the film itself, teasingly stopping and starting just before and after the rumpy pumpy.

As such, one comes to have a great respect for her, how she is strong enough to be who she is. 'Belle de Jour', somewhat controversially, is actually a very pro-feminist film, though it hasn't worked out how to balance that without being anti-masculist. At the start Severine is helpless because she lives in a listless and unfulfilling existence, but once she understands how men work, on a physical, emotional and psychological level, she visibly becomes relaxed and loosened up. Her marriage blossoms with happiness, because she knows how to work around Pierre, instead of feeling useless or used. As she sees throughout the sessions with various clients, its women who are always in control, both on the literal level to satisfy the perverts who want a service, but also in normal heterosexual relationships; think of how her actions affect Pierre without her knowing, it's because she's suddenly made him feel inadequate and his response is to hold onto her, like all men do when they feel a relationship is in trouble. Severine's ideal man comes at the end, whe Pierre is immobile and cannot speak: the idea is that women do need men, just that they should shut up and stay out of trouble while women take care of things. To a modern audience this idea might actually seem anti-feminist, but modern feminism is about equality as well as independence, and Severine gets both as she is allowed to do her own things and not be berated or influenced emotionally by Pierre.

Of course, the flipside to it is that all the men in the film are complete monsters, from the inevitably pathetic clients to the arrogantly macho idiots of Marcel and Duke. Pierre himself is a symbol of the traditionally conservative young husband, who wears his bride like a badge and spends time with her out of obligation rather than preference; they even sleep in separate beds! The most comple male character is Husson, and this is Bunuel's biggest sneer. Husson acts like a gentleman and is blunt and straightforward with what he wants, but he's also deeply selfish and pretentious, arguing that he should be the one to reveal Severine's secret to Pierre and not her, because he feels he knows her husband more than she does. It's this simple but monstrous misogyny that is buried far below the surface yet is allowed to happen because it's so well hidden; how many times do men hang out with their friends because they feel more accepted than with their partners? It demeans the nature of a relationship, from a male point of view. Women want relationships for love and affection and company, but this is exactly what is denied to them, and only a relationship of subservience, oppression and control is what is offered to them. What makes 'Belle de Jour' so powerful is its subtlety, even when dealing with such a big metaphor as prostitution.

For once this is a film where the film making is equal to the quality of the cast. Supporting players are brilliant all around, but this is obviously Deneuve's film. Considering only three years before she had played the bright-eyed, petulant teenage mother in 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg', to see her transform into a fully mature, cool and solid woman is nothing short of breathtaking. Yes, she's shockingly beautiful, and her body is the stuff of daydreams in itself, but there's a reason why she's France's most beloved actress, and it's because of her power of personality. What maybe weakens the film ever so slightly is that Deneuve is so passionately her own person it's a little difficult to think of her as maltreated and neglected. Nevertheless, she's a wonderfully talented performer, making Severine one of cinema's really iconic figures, that sleek blond hair draped over a face bursting with character and warmth. No wonder she's been referenced in everything since, from the 'The Hunger' to 'Shortbus'.

Finally, despite such a heavy intellectual payload, Bunuel always had a wicked sense of humour, and it's present and correct here. The fantasies are obviously comical in their kinkiness, but smaller moments also generate snappy laughs, such as Page's Madame Anais stealing a kiss from Severine without her even realising it. It serves to pin down the film's rather bulging amount of messages and observations, and, like the beginning and ending dream sequences extol on behalf of Bunuel himself, life is whatever you want it to be but it's also, inescapably, above all, just plain weird.