In a sentenceCatherine Deneuve is impeccably dressed for thoughts nobody wants discussed over dinner
Séverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) leads a double life, her private sexual desires at odds with the respectable appearance she maintains. Around her are Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli) and Madame Anais (Geneviève Page). What Séverine imagines begins to mingle with what she experiences, while memories further complicate the distinction. She seeks space for desires she cannot openly acknowledge, but the power men hold in her life also enters her fantasies. The story follows her between these experiences without consistently separating the events taking place from those unfolding in her mind.
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Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour is funny, unsettling and worth the discomfort, with Catherine Deneuve giving its sexual fantasies a troubling calm. The coolness can keep us at a distance, but the film’s suspicion of respectable behaviour remains persuasive.
Belle de Jour is a sly, unsettling film about a woman’s desires and the respectable behaviour expected of her, and we recommend it with one reservation: its coolness sometimes keeps us further away than it needs to. Luis Buñuel lets Séverine’s imagined experiences enter her daily life without giving us a reliable way to separate them. He also declines to make her explain herself. Catherine Deneuve makes her worth watching closely.
Her performance is controlled enough to make a small change of expression worth watching. We found her composure unsettling, because her face remains so guarded as the film moves into sexual fantasy; it gives us no comfortable cue for how to react. The temptation is to call Séverine cold and think we have understood her. The performance makes that judgement feel premature. Her restraint allows us to sense a private life without pretending we have been given unrestricted access to it.
Sacha Vierny’s colour photography and Yves Saint Laurent’s costumes make the attention paid to appearances tangible. The couture gives us something precise to look at when Séverine’s thoughts become difficult to follow, and its elegance makes the contrast with her fantasies uncomfortable. Robert Clavel’s production design supports that concern with how things look to other people. We admire the polish, though sometimes we become absorbed in it and lose touch with Séverine’s discomfort.
Louisette Hautecoeur’s editing does crucial work in the movement between memory, fantasy and ordinary experience. The transitions do not behave like helpful labels, and trying to classify every passage soon becomes a distraction. What matters is that Séverine cannot imagine desire entirely free of the pressures around her. The director keeps the uncertainty clear enough to follow, which is a harder task than simply confusing us, and the editing gives those changes an unforced rhythm.
The screenplay by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière is particularly sharp about the power men retain even in Séverine’s fantasies. Even in imagination, she has not simply left other people’s demands behind. There is dry comedy in the failure of respectable behaviour to settle any of this, though the humour never makes Séverine’s unease seem trivial. Anyone expecting an erotic drama to reveal a secret and then explain its heroine will have to adjust; the writers leave a good deal unexplained.
Our reservation concerns that same distance. The writers give us plenty to think about, but at times the cool handling makes Séverine seem like someone being studied, and we wanted more contact with her ordinary feelings. Catherine Deneuve’s restraint remains absorbing even when the film around her risks becoming too pleased with its ambiguity. A little more warmth would have helped in these stretches without requiring her to explain every thought.
At 101 minutes, it does not overstay its uncertainties. The pleasure lies in attending to the central performance, the careful costumes and the way the film quietly makes our judgements less secure. We would recommend it to anyone prepared for an erotic drama that can be funny without becoming comfortable. If you need a firm explanation before the evening is over, choose something else.
Most critics respond warmly to Belle de Jour, with praise centred on Catherine Deneuve’s controlled performance and Buñuel’s dry, subversive handling of sexual desire and social hypocrisy. The reviews repeatedly admire the movement between fantasy and reality, finding its ambiguity compelling rather than confusing. Deneuve’s cool elegance is a recurring point of agreement, while the photography, colour, production design and editing also draw praise for giving the heroine’s double life such a precise visual form.
The spread runs from strong enthusiasm to qualified admiration, with only one mixed assessment and no negative reviews. The clearest reservation comes from the Los Angeles Times, which finds the film interesting and provocative but considers its detached, cerebral approach a limitation. Even that review praises the acting and use of colour; the disagreement is chiefly over how much Buñuel’s coolness limits the film’s impact.
The critic regards the film as a complex, acclaimed masterpiece. They single out Catherine Deneuve’s beguiling performance and the film’s deft shifts between dream and reality.
Read the full review →The critic calls the film radical and compelling despite some flaws. They praise how Buñuel shows patriarchal power spilling into Séverine’s fantasies.
Read the full review →Bradshaw finds the film strange and captivating, with a shrewd, scabrous critique of social hypocrisy and sexual politics. He especially praises Catherine Deneuve’s extraordinary, ghostlike performance.
Read the full review →Dawson praises the film’s seamless blending of fantasy, memory and reality. She singles out Catherine Deneuve’s controlled performance and Sacha Vierny’s camerawork.
Read the full review →Lane welcomes the film’s return and regards its subversion as enduringly fresh. He singles out the deadpan precision of Buñuel and Catherine Deneuve as the reason it has not dated.
Read the full review →Nathan highly recommends the film as witty, erotic and elegant. He praises its effortless style and the contrast between Deneuve’s delicate beauty and her character’s carnal desires.
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The Piano TeacherA harsher study of sexual secrecy, control and desires that resist explanation.
The Double Life of VéroniqueFor another elusive heroine whose inner life refuses a tidy explanation.
The HandmaidenSexual power and elaborate appearances, handled with more overt mischief and suspense.
PersonaTwo women, closely watched, make silence and uncertain identity difficult to escape.
The ServantRespectable interiors become distinctly uncomfortable as class power and desire change hands.
