Belle de Jour

Starring:Catherine Deneuve
Studio: Miramax
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

A young Paris housewife, Séverine, grows bored with her stable husband. When she learns of the presence of a high-class brothel in her neighborhood, she quietly goes to work there--but only during the day, until five o'clock in the afternoon. This sublime 1967 film is one of the latter-day masterpieces of the Spanish-born director Luis Buñuel, whose career forms one of the greatest and boldest arcs in cinema. By the time of Belle de jour, Buñuel had become almost completely deadpan in his style, which not only leaves the motivation of Séverine a mystery (despite a few flashbacks to degradations of her youth), but also casts the entire plot in doubt. An old surrealist from the 1920s (when his first classic, Un chien andalou, was made in collaboration with Salvador Dali), Buñuel suggests that what we see may be real, or simply Séverine's imagination. Because he was the least pretentious of directors, Buñuel keeps his material playful, wicked, yet cutting. As Séverine, the impossibly lovely Catherine Deneuve uses her cool demeanor to great effect--she never breaks her deadpan, either. In 1995, after having been out of official circulation for years, Belle de Jour was re-released in America and became an unexpected art-house hit. --Robert Horton

Description

Widely acclaimed as a motion picture masterpiece, BELLE DE JOUR is an erotically charged tale of deceit and desire! Beautiful Catherine Deneuve (INDOCHINE) stars as Severine, a perfect young housewife ... who leads a shocking double life. What her loving husband Pierre doesn't know is that by day she's a high-priced prostitute! But when the dangerous obsession of a customer forces her terrible secrets out into the open, Pierre must decide whether to reject her for what she has done ... or accept her for who she is! Now available on video for the first time, the stunning erotic intrigue of BELLE DE JOUR will both captivate and entertain!

Customer Reviews:

Male fantasy of female fantasies?.......2007-01-26

According to a long, interesting interview with the writer, Jean-Claude Carriere, and the assistant director, Jean Lary, which came with my disc (Studio Canal: Reg 2), all the masochistic footage for this film had been extremely thoroughly researched before its release in 1967. These were all "real" fantasies recounted by real women. Those parts of the film which were superficially presented as real, therefore, ie the idea that a doctor's wife would actually spend her afternoons being humiliated in a maison de joie, were fantastic; and the fantasy sequences were actually "real". Disorienting, isn't it? The first question is if these female fantasies of being dominated by brutal men are being repeated today, 40 years later. Seems unlikely. The next question is if anything in the story is real. Isn't the whole thing completely surreal? Nothing of what unfolds need have actually happened at all, including the bit about the husband being shot and sitting paralysed in a wheelchair: it's all his wife's dream. Why is the husband shown staring at an empty wheelchair in the street in one scene? The wife may even have fantasised about being molested as a little girl, and also fantasises about her husband being a helplessly passive baby, who needs to be looked after --- since she hasn't a child of her own. An idle bourgeois wife --- one of Bunuel's typical targets --- has nothing else to occupy her mind during the day.

The film is promoted as being "erotic". That sells tickets. It didn't seem erotic to me in the slightest, in fact it was all a very cold and intellectual puzzle. The whole scenario was highly unemotional and artificial: the elegant home of the couple, their smart clothes, the tidy, domestic brothel, the stereotypical customers, the stereotypical gangsters with their pulp fiction dialogue and behaviour. The photography seemed flat, without depth, and the assistant director comments that darkness and shadows were deliberately avoided.

Since I find puzzles fascinating, it was very interesting and entertaining to watch. Kubrick's clumsy Eyes Wide Shut seems to have been inspired by it, just as his clumsy The Shining was inspired by Last Year at Marienbad. Both these French films are intellectually far superior to anything produced by Hollywood these days.

Daydeaming and Fantasies can have Consequences.......2007-01-08

I found this movie to be a fascinating story about the trauma that can be caused to those we love when we allow our fantasies and daydreaming to interfere with our actual lives. I was constantly wondering where I would draw the line if I was the heroine. The experience allowed me to visualize the mayhem that could be caused by to much fantasy/daydreaming.

DENEUVE AND BUNUEL SPELL A FILM BETTER THAN ANYTHING IN THE PAST FORTY YEARS.......2006-09-06

This one simple French film by a wonderful Spanish ex-patriate (escaping the fascist dictator Franco) director beats anything since produced. Julia Roberts looks very very sad in comparison.

Not just a chick flick. Get this movie and weep for the horror which is HOllywood, and the monopolization of our art and culture. This is art. This is culture. This is one steamy flick.

So. Go. Learn French. This film gives reason.

Worthless.......2006-03-12

"Belle de Jour" is widely acclaimed as a masterpiece. I would like to know: by whom? Certainly by nobody with high self-esteem. If art's highest purpose is to project life as it ought to be, then, according to this film's creators, life ought to be seen as dispensable, drab, meaningless, and amoral. What is virtue? "Belle de Jour" doesn't know and doesn't care. What is coherent plot and characterization? "Belle de Jour" puts on a blindfold and pins a tale on neither. What sort of role best suits a stunningly beautiful actress? "Belle de Jour" says let's stick Catherine Deneuve in a pillory of an ugly, thankless role and spit at her as a self-loathing, self-deluded prostitute. What is "Belle de Jour"? Worthless.

Without Question, A Great Film.......2006-01-26

Before any of you freak out at the three stars I ve given the film, hear me out. Its three stars based on how much I enjoyed the film, not on the quality of the artistry in the picture. Thus three stars because I did enjoy it, but ultimately, I dont see myself ever going back to it nor do I think it might dominate my thoughts or imagination for long either. Its simply how heavy was I hit by this film, and the honest answer is, enough to enjoy it throughout the viewing, but not much beyond that.

To also address any potential crys about the actual technical qualtiy of the print; its fine. Similar to older Bond pictures, the quality of sound and screen is not what you d find in a New Star Wars, but more like what you might find in an old one. In other words, if this is really something that bothers you, it might be wise to watch nothing older than say, maybe, '95, cause you might get distracted. Get over it.

Now the film is intriguing. It does show a really interesting view of the ways someone can be effected so subconciously as a child and carry over those pains to their adult life in very odd and truly disturbing desires. Its about a women who clearly cant figure out what makes her tick when it comes to men, and though she knows its wrong, gets her thrills over prostituting herself. I feel its very relavent today, and is something more people go through than one might expect; it just doesnt always culminate in becoming a prostitute.

But ultimately this is where I think I just couldnt connect with the film any deeper. I dont find this moving nor really profound. Its a simply story of a women searching for her true self and having to accept her demons to get there. So to sum it up simply, tis a great film and worthy of all the praise it recieves, but it takes something different to hit me in the gut.

Average customer rating:

Nazarin [PAL, Region 2, Import]
Starring: Francisco Rabal , Marga López , Rita Macedo , Jesús Fernández , and Ignacio López Tarso
Director: Luis Buñuel
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Acclaimed director Luis Buñuel displays several of his trademark interests in this drama about a priest who leaves his order. The director's disdain for organized religion and the establishment, as well as his tendency to shock through visual imagery, are both apparent. Nazarin (Francisco Rabal) is the priest who leaves his order and decides to go on a pilgrimage. As he goes along subsisting on alms, he shelters a prostitute wanted by the police for murder. He is released from suspicion and she eventually catches up with him when she escapes imprisonment. Another woman joins the duo and soon the ex-priest is learning more about the human heart and suffering than when he wore robes. As for the shocking scenes, suffice to say the ravages of a plague are also shown.

Average customer rating:

Male fantasy of female fantasies?
Daydeaming and Fantasies can have Consequences
DENEUVE AND BUNUEL SPELL A FILM BETTER THAN ANYTHING IN THE PAST FORTY YEARS
Worthless
Without Question, A Great Film

Belle de jour
Starring: Catherine Deneuve , Jean Sorel , Michel Piccoli , Geneviève Page , and Pierre Clémenti
Director: Luis Buñuel
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B000065KMR

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Male fantasy of female fantasies?.......2007-01-26

Daydeaming and Fantasies can have Consequences.......2007-01-08

DENEUVE AND BUNUEL SPELL A FILM BETTER THAN ANYTHING IN THE PAST FORTY YEARS.......2006-09-06

Worthless.......2006-03-12

Without Question, A Great Film.......2006-01-26

Don't Commit Impure Acts (Italian Movie)

Average customer rating:

Don't Commit Impure Acts (Italian Movie)

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Nudity & Adult Comedy
Uncut Version
Italian Language Only
Scene Selection

ASIN: B000N83LC8

Product Description

An unreligious artist (Dado Crostarosa) falls hard for his chaste, god-fearing neighbor (Simonetta Stefanelli). As the young woman begins warming up to the idea of a relationship, her domineering uncle puts the kibosh on the affair, leaving the young painter to lick his wounds and try to appease the old fuddy-duddy by converting to the neighbor's religion...

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