I love Love LOVE LOVE Belle de Jour! Haters, be damned. I know this is viewed by lots as minor Buñuel, but this film actually erased or clarified my previous qualms about his signature symbolism and surrealism. Belle de Jour worked for me. And it worked perfectly!

I thought that Buñuel was in full command of the medium here. Whereas I could not gloss over his usual conceits in Viridiana (for example), I think they suited Belle de Jour perfectly well. He moved the film forward and he did it with panache. Catherine Deneuve is immaculate in her role as the lonely wife-turned-prostitute Severine who harbours masochistic and humiliation fantasies. Critics may argue that this was a misogynistic treatment of her character. But I never felt that way. Indeed, I felt the other way around. Because she was trapped in her ennui, in the all too familiar banality of her bourgeois existence, she sought her own liberation (sexual and personal) by being in control of her life.

Prostitution was less of a point and more of a metaphor. It was this control that she had that allowed here to blossom. Even in small scenes where Severine was just playing or chatting with the other working girls, one could feel the palpable joy in her eyes. She was free and she had company. Indeed, life is not merely about possessions (she had lots based on scenes filmed in her home), it is about the people around us and how we interact with them. Even her encounters with the various customers, however bizarre, have more “life” than her life at home. Buñuel indeed films these scenes with such compassion and honesty but also with such audacity and bluntness; no wonder this film made waves during the Venice film festival that year (even winning the Golden Lion)!

It is just too tragic that in this film, the rest of the world could not keep up. This was symbolized by all her fantasies featuring the men wearing Victorian era costumes. There was her husband Pierre (Jean Sorel) who was blind to her demands and also to her needs. There was her gangster lover Marcel (Paul Clémenti) whose naivety caused everyone dearly. He was kinda hot but his stupidity was astounding (Buñuel does a perfect joke on our fantasies of love with this character). And speaking of jokes, I thought that there were lots of inside jokes (or parodies) poked at Godard especially Breathless. There is the announcement from a seller shouting “New York Herald Tribune!” (Saint Jean!!!). And that street shooting purely channels Jean-Paul Belmondo’s final scene. I think only Michel Piccoli’s character Henri understood Severine’s plight but even he was ultimately constricted by the prevailing social conventions.

Belle de Jour comes in full circle at the end. Reality and fantasy collide in such a heartbreaking sequence. With her husband paralyzed, Severine makes one last fantasy – that of a happy relationship with her husband – this time stripped of sexual tones. The scene was just pure and sincere. I got overwhelmed. I cried during this part. I had been completely sold on this film early on but this perfect denouement nailed it perfectly for me. In this film, Buñuel successfully weaves the “real” and the “dream” into one lucid filmic existence. Just as Juliet of the Spirits (which has lots of parallels with Belle de Jour I might add) completely sold me on Fellini after my initial indifference to 8½ (I have since re-assessed it), Belle de Jour is my own epiphany (OMG Christmas!) on the endearing genius of this other surrealist master!