Belle de Jour
Luis Buñuel
Séverine and Pierre are a happy, bourgeois couple. However, Séverine's masochistic and secret fantasies soon upset the balance of their marriage. Driven by an unstoppable desire, and without her husband's knowing, Séverine decides to become a prostitute, becoming "Belle de Jour". But very soon the young woman's double life is threatened by a young man in love...
With : Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviève Page, Francisco Rabal, Pierre Clementi, Françoise Fabian, Maria Latour, Francis Blanche, François Maistre, Macha Meril
Screenplay : Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière, d'après le roman homonyme de Joseph Kessel
Image : Sacha Vierny
Sound : Pierre Davoust, René Longuet
Editing : Louisette Hautecœur
Decors : Robert Clavel
Screenplay : Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière, d'après le roman homonyme de Joseph Kessel
Image : Sacha Vierny
Sound : Pierre Davoust, René Longuet
Editing : Louisette Hautecœur
Decors : Robert Clavel
Production : Henri Baum, Paris Film Production (Robert et Raymond Hakim), Five Film
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
One of Buñuel's essential films, Belle de jour subtly plays on the blend between fact and fiction. Jean-Claude Carrière, who wrote the script and was a loyal collaborator of Buñuel, likes to say that the film oddly wrong foots appearances: the situations in the house where the lovers meet, or Séverine's fantasies all spring from accounts told to the scriptwriter by women. Only the main plot, which nevertheless appears to be realistic, actually turns out to be pure fiction. It is probably in this film that Buñuel delves deepest into the hidden soul. This time it is not the director who is surrealist, but his characters. The unreal part of his films becomes real here, and dreams become fantasy.