Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One description of 'Belle de jour' that I read described the film, at some point, as being like a daydream. Nothing could be closer to the truth. Bunuel, Bunuel, Bunuel! One of cinema's all time greats, and a personal favorite filmmaker of mine for a few years now! 'Belle de jour' may be his greatest masterpiece, although I personally do prefer the likes of 'L'age d'Or', 'Viridiana', and 'Simon of the Desert', I feel like 'Belle de jour' can certainly be considered the most genuinely high quality film in his prolific and more than impressive cinematic oeuvre. It contains many of the elements that make Bunuel such a beloved and brilliant artist; the humor is there, the tragedy/drama is there, the strange sexual content is there, and the classic sense of surrealism all his greatest films have utilized so wonderfully is perfected here. This is Bunuel at the top of his game, blurring the already-blurry lines between cinematic fantasy and cinematic reality, playing w/flashbacks and dream sequences and never keeping absurdity out of the question no matter the setting or situation. And sexuality is portrayed with as much confusion and wild surrealist hijinks as is necessary when attempting to explore such a mess of a topic. Few filmmakers (or artists, whether they be authors or painters or whatever, for that matter) can depict sexuality quite like Bunuel can. 'Belle de jour' harkens back to Bunuel's much earlier masterpiece, 'L'age d'Or', which depicted sex w/a raging sort of surrealist accuracy that struck something in people, turning them angrily against him and his work, making them set fires to some cinemas in which it played, banning his obscene and blasphemous black comedy of horrors, and 'Belle de jour' may strike a similar emotional reaction to those of a more archaic sensibility, and the same energy said archaic-types may muster up in response may be utilized by film lovers across the globe to tear their hearts out in gripping love and admiration for Bunuel and this fantastical film!

"Belle de jour" is a novel-based co-production between France and Italy that result in this (mostly) French-language film from 1967. This means it has its 50th anniversary this year and thanks to that, several theaters here in Germany (Berlin) decided to being the film back to the big screen. First of all, I want to say that I love this decision. I wish they could bring back many old films again to theaters as I believe it is an entirely different experience to see that film at a theater than to see it at home. Unless you're a millionaire and have your own theater room in your mansion. But for everybody who doesn't, it is a unique opportunity and looking at how packed the theater today was, I am sure that many will agree and that the argument that people would not watch old films on the big screen again is simply incorrect.Now, lets take a look at this one here. Let me say first that I have not read the novel by Joseph Kessel before seeing this one. I also have not seen the film before today's viewing, it was a first time watch. And I guess I enjoyed it. The director and writer was Luis Buñuel and he was already in his late 60s when he made this one, so you can certainly say that new ideas can come to life in old shells. Looking at how sexual and free-spirited the movie is, it is easy to say that Buñuel was way ahead of his time back in the 1960s when people were still prudes, at least when it comes to sexuality in films. The lead actress is Catherine Deneuve and while I am usually definitely more into brunettes and dark-haired women, I cannot deny that she was pretty attractive in here. However, they also certainly knew how to put her in the right position, for example when we see her in an expensive coat and the two other prostitutes next to hear wear nothing but underwear, even if she was one of them.Now I mentioned prostitutes already: Yep this is a movie that takes place mostly inside a brother during its 100 minutes running time. It is about a woman who is not satisfied sexually by her very kind very charming man, but she needs what you may want to call a strong hand to tame her somehow. Or a special place where she can fulfill her sexual desires. Oh my, this sounds like 50 Shades of Grey doesn't it. Not intentional. Anyway, the brother is certainly pretty exclusive as wealthy businessmen and doctors join the girls as "customers" who want to explore their forbidden desires too (masochism e.g.). But the protagonist has more of an interest in a career criminal and not a small-time thug, but a brutal gangster actually. It becomes a relationship with deadly consequences in the end. One of the more interesting aspects of this film is certainly how the line between reality and the central character's fantasies gets more and more blurry and at the very end when we see the injured man suddenly get out of his wheelchair as if it was nothing, there is basically a complete mix-up. I also quite liked the last shot back to the sound and images of the carriage because this was where it all began with her fantasies.Finally, I want to say that the film needed a little while to really get me interested, but finally it was a fairly decent viewing I would say. It certainly gets better the longer it goes. I would not consider it an epic as many do today (I still read a description about a newer film recently where it is called a modern "Belle de jour"), but it's for sure among the better films of the 1960s. I know they showed some restored version, but boy did it look modern. But not in a bad way as it did not take away any of the film's charm I am sure. So yeah if you like Deneuved and still haven't seen it (which sounds like a really unlikely possibility because it is one of her trademark films, then you really need to see this one, preferably on a big screen. But even if you aren't a big Deneuve fan (neither am I), it is still worth checking out and be it only to show theaters that you want to see old films on the big screen because next up may be one of your very favorites. Go for it. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

The silent era, the dawning of sound in film, the narrative complexities of Citizen Kane (1941), the rise and fall of the studio system, the Nouvelle Vogue, the novelty of the summer blockbuster and the increasing corporatism in Hollywood; auteur Luis Bunuel was around for all of that. Standing on the outside of film history, Bunuel never really considered himself a "filmmaker" but more of an artist who uses film as his means of expression. Most of his films were laden several layers deep with repeated narrative elements, incendiary attacks on social institutions, deeply personal musings and of course his trademark surrealism. Even today his films not only defy aspects of film form, but mock any notion of categorization. They're not films, they're defiant chuckles at the expense of the abyss.Belle de Jour is the rebel director's most popular film and by all outward appearances his most commercial. A rundown of the plot reads like an Adrian Lyne film; Severine (Deneuve) a young but emotionally vacant housewife spends her afternoons as a prostitute. Yet what's lost in such a description is the film's oozing sexuality and festering indignation of Catholicism and haute bourgeois living. Not a single frame of Belle de Jour is filled with nudity yet everything is given a sexual dimension from the quiet demurs of a housewife's diligent sewing to the firm coaxing of Severine's madam (Page).The film in its initial run was no doubt helped at the box office by the presence of Catherine Deneuve, whose performance in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and followup work in The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) have made her an international star. What brought her to Belle de Jour and Bunuel is a bit of a mystery but unlike some of Bunuel's leading ladies in other films, Deneuve is quite simply irreplaceable. She walks a razor-thin tightrope between dignity and depravity encompassing the troubling idiom "angel in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom" yet on her own terms. No doubt a lesser actress would fray to Bunuel's wearisome demands but with Deneuve it's hard to tell who's really controlling who. Keep in mind in several instances Severine fantasizes about being raped, beaten and whipped in dream sequences Deneuve had to perform. Anyone who can keep their dignity while being pelted with mud like that is certainly talented beyond most.Unlike the equally engaging Viridiana (1961) and The Exterminating Angel (1962), Belle de Jour is at once more collaborative and more personal. Personal because the film certainly indulges in naked and prurient interests of the director. Yet collaborative because he's found an actress willing to explore human perversion in a way that goes beyond sharp and blustering mockery. Bunuel and Deneuve would team up once more for Tristana (1970) becoming one of the only leading lady repeat collaborators (a list whose only other inclusion is Silvia Pinal). As a followup, Tristana is certainly angrier yet in its petulance feels less layered by comparison.Anyone intimidated by the expansive and critically irreproachable filmography of Luis Bunuel should seek Belle de Jour as an introduction. The film lies on the nexus between popular appeal, art-house, thinking-man's proclivities and the director's particular brand of madness. Furthermore, Catherine Deneuve is a game collaborator who at times steals the film to add some tasteful meta- text. Gloriously sexy, defiantly surreal and presented in luscious color for the first time in Bunuel's career, Belle de Jour is a must see for film fanatics.

A woman is frigid and won't have sex with her husband, probably because she was molested as a child. So she goes to a psychiatrist to get help, right? Wrong! She decides to go to work in a whorehouse, where turning a few tricks in the afternoon is just the therapy she needs, especially since all her customers are kinky and twisted. Of course, their perversions are only artificial movie perversions, not the sort of thing a prostitute would be likely to encounter on a daily basis in real life.Her husband still doesn't get any sex, though, because that just is not the way she loves him. One of her jealous customers shoots her husband anyway, leaving him mute, blind, crippled, and incapable of having sex. Now she has the perfect husband. But not for long. A friend of the family decides her husband will feel as though he is a burden on his virtuous wife, so he tells him that she is a prostitute. That way he won't feel so guilty.But wait. It was all just a dream. Fooled you.