Belle de Jour (1967)

A frigid young housewife decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute.

Director:

Luis Buñuel (as Luis Bunuel)

Writers:

Joseph Kessel (novel) (as Joseph Kessel de l'Académie Française), Luis Buñuel (adaptation) (as Luis Bunuel)

Stars:

Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 6 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Catherine Deneuve	...	Séverine Serizy / Belle de Jour
Jean Sorel	...	Pierre Serizy
Michel Piccoli	...	Henri Husson
Geneviève Page	...	Madame Anais
Pierre Clémenti	...	Marcel (as Pierre Clementi)
Françoise Fabian	...	Charlotte
Macha Méril	...	Renee (as Macha Meril)
Muni	...	Pallas
Maria Latour	...	Mathilde
Claude Cerval	...	Le chauffeur
Michel Charrel	...	Footman
Iska Khan	...	Asian Client
Bernard Musson	...	Majordomo
Marcel Charvey	...	Prof. Henri
François Maistre	...	L'enseignant

Storyline

Severine is a beautiful young woman married to a doctor. She loves her husband dearly, but cannot bring herself to be physically intimate with him. She indulges instead in vivid, kinky, erotic fantasies to entertain her sexual desires. Eventually she becomes a prostitute, working in a brothel in the afternoons while remaining chaste in her marriage.

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Plot Keywords:

prostitute | prostitute wife | marriage | brothel madam | double life | 

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Taglines:

Luis Bunuel's Masterpiece of Erotica!

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film also generated a great deal of discussion and debate among audiences about its meaning and what scenes were real versus being part of Séverine's fantasies. Luis Buñuel, as usual, didn't feel the need to explain his work, which only added to the film's mystique. This blurring of reality and fantasy, he said, was "what stimulated me to film the story. By the end, the real and the imaginary fuse. I myself cannot tell you what is real and what's imaginary in the film. For me they form the same thing."

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Goofs

When Mr. Adolphe first unzips Belle's dress she has a slip under it, but when she rushes out and then comes back in, Adolphe unzips her dress again and she isn't wearing the slip anymore.

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Quotes

Madame Anais: I'm not asking for your real name. You think mine is really Anaïs?

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Connections

Featured in The 100 Greatest Films (2001)

User Reviews

The gap between fantasy and reality in female desire

Deneuve plays Séverine Serizy, a bored middle-class woman who never slept with her handsome husband Pierre (Jean Sorel). She eventually adopts a double life on weekday afternoons as a hooker… Here she explores the depths of her desires with her amazing sexual inhibitions… Although the film resolves around her goings-on at a high-class brothel, real nudity and sex are never shown…

"Belle de Jour" may seem one of the most mysterious, poetic, and provoking films ever made… Producing a body of work unparalleled in its wealth of meaning and its ability to surprise and shock, Buñuel leads us into a new world arousing wonder and astonishment, depravity and pleasure, weird and entertaining

Details

Country:

France Italy

Language:

French

Release Date:

10 April 1968 (USA)

Also Known As:

Belle de Jour

Filming Locations:

Valberg, Guillaumes, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$6,462, 25 March 2018

Gross USA:

$4,063,348

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$4,156,279

Company Credits

Production Co:

Robert et Raymond Hakim, Paris Film Productions, Five Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1