Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967)

 

Truth is that I was never a big fan of Luis Bunuel. I liked his comments and his wit, but his movie were tedious and boring to me. But it's a fact that it's more to Luis' cinema than the boredom that it might produce. There is that ridiculing comment in almost all of his films. Arthouse dramas might be most of them, but they carry a sardonic humoristic side, a side that is by far the biggest charm of the Spanish director. My favorite film of his is The Phantom Of Liberty one of the most openly comedic and satirical films of his. With Belle de Jour is ridiculing once again the settled, bourgeois people, but this time with a sense of eroticism and a clear touch of depravity. Belle de Jour is the story of a young beautiful married woman who voluntary becomes a high-class prostitute when her husband is at work. The premise of the movie, straightly highly controversial for the time that it came out, prepares for an unforgettable movie that you'll enjoy as no other. 

Well truth is far from that. Although the movie has some impeccable moments, like the disturbed dreams of this woman as also some disgusting clients of her, it has that flavor that Bunuel so commonly had in his movies that throws you out of the movie. It's hard for me to explain but I can say that there was a highly amateurish side in Bunuel. Belle de Jour has everything you need for an amazing movie, yet the film is heartless, boring, sparkless. And that is a huge statement if we take in account the fact that there is a scene in there were we see Catherine Deneuve full of mud that is been thrown at her. I mean the scene is absolutely legendary. Who the hell would have thought that kind of humiliation for that angelic woman? So, yeah, the movie is strangely polarizing for me. It's certainly a movie that you don't forget after you have seen, but it's also a superb banality when it comes to the actual making of the movie. Bunuel gave all of his attention to the actual story, but he forgot that we are watching cinema here and not reading a book.