Diary of a Chambermaid

Le journal d'une femme de chambre

France, 1964

Drama, Crime

Synopsis

In this wicked adaptation of the Octave Mirbeau novel, Jeanne Moreau is Celestine, a beautiful Parisian domestic who, upon arrival at her new job at an estate in provincial 1930s France, entrenches herself in sexual hypocrisy and scandal with her philandering employer (Michel Piccoli).

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Diary of a Chambermaid Directed by Luis Buñuel

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Awards & Festivals

Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists

1965 | Nominee: Best Foreign Director

Viennale

2016

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Cast & Crew

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Critics reviews

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[Surrealist themes] are all contained within Buñuel’s simple visual style and even tone – and are certainly discreet – contributing to a subtlety that perhaps contributes to this film’s relative critical neglect in the director’s oeuvre.

Victoria Loy

March 14, 2018

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Despite the strained outward appearance of civility and cultivation—the devotion to cleanliness, fine, fragile embellishments, and refined decorum—this surface stability conceals dormant desires and domestic disturbances. Diary of a Chambermaid is a film built on taking first impressions and presumed positions, and delightfully pulling back the concealing curtain to uncover eccentric behavior and fetishistic fancy.

Jeremy Carr

February 22, 2018

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Shot in lush, widescreen black-and-white, Chambermaid is a supremely elegant film, its graceful surfaces sometimes at odds with the cruelty of its story. Buñuel’s typical injections of perversion and narrative non sequiturs quietly accumulate, so that early on you could mistake the movie for an almost conventional one. Perhaps the picture’s greatest virtue is Moreau’s central performance.

Bilge Ebiri

March 28, 2017

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What are people saying?

Diderot's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Diderot

One of my favorite Bunuel films, and certainly one of the best adaptations of this story. Bunuel's taste for psycho-sexual menace replaces Renoir's class-struggle romance, and Jeanne Moreau is as perfect in this version as Goddard was in Renoir's.
July 31, 2017 18:55
- 1
- 0
Samuel Donath's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Samuel Donath

I watch this film at least twice a year. At least. This film is fantastic. Bunuel and Moreau?!?!?! What follows is a beautiful, dark, tricky, and sexual tale. FANTASTIC! I only wish the Criterion Collection edition wasn't out of print.
January 24, 2019 18:05
- 5
- 0
ramosbarajas's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
ramosbarajas

In many regards, a direct and uncomplicated film. Buñuel knew what he wanted to say, and it shows. And yet, it's ambiguous by choice, and this is its greatest strength. Moreau's performance is great as the complex chambermaid. The script foreshadows many details, and they pay off nicely. The critical look at society, from all angles is expertly accomplished. Probably one of my favorites by him.
January 24, 2019 17:01
- 4
- 0
Art Vandelay's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Art Vandelay

While superficially one of Buñuel's most lucid and orderly works, Diary Of A Chambermaid is regardlessly one of his most beguiling, inexplicable, and unsettling pictures, containing some of his most indelible and erotically-charged imagery––the snails slithering over Claire's corpse; Jeanne Moreau's lovely legs, footwear, and maid's uniform––amidst a tapestry of pastoral repression.
January 24, 2019 16:59
- 9
- 1
Colton Bose's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Colton Bose

There are very few films that I have ever seen that have such a strong subtext of sensuality as to inspire genuine arousal, and very few still that are as perfectly executed, as this gem of a masterpiece. As Criterion so perfectly states, it's "classic Buñuel".
January 24, 2019 16:41
- 2
- 0
KiNo's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
KiNo

The finest way of attuning the tidal blur between good and evil and ambiguity, pure poetry of ambiguity of motives. The genius of Bunuel is a magnifier looking into the society of bourgeois and the fooled people by nationalism.
January 24, 2019 16:01
- 4
- 0
Publius's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Publius

I am almost inclined to say this is my favourite Bunuel.
August 11, 2010 00:51
- 1
- 1
Smooth_J's rating of the film Diary of a Chambermaid
Smooth_J

Thematically laying somewhere between Belle de Jour & Viridiana, Diary of a Chambermaid is probably one of Bunuel's most effective attacks on the hypocrisy and decadence of the bourgeoisie. By likening their rituals to those of the emerging fascist party in France, he compells the viewer to despise the "coming storm" of fascism as much as he does. Diary is another scintillating work by a great cinema provocateur.
January 24, 2019 15:23
- 2
- 0