(This article is a review of the 1996 film's theatrical re-release)
Excerpts
from Louis Bunuel's Belle de Jour is a 1967 film, but it teaches us What is erotic in a movie. Let's start with the face of Catherine Deneuve as she listens to a taxi driver describe to her a famous Paris brothel - where bored women might work an afternoon or two a week to earn some pocket money money. There was absolutely no expression on her face. The camera stops there. The driver continued talking. We understand that Deneuve's character is so engrossed in what she's hearing that sooner or later she can't help but go to that brothel to experience what "Beauty of the Day" is.
We already know a little bit about this character at this point. Her name is Severina, and her husband is a wealthy, boring young businessman (Jean Sorel). Their married life was comfortable but lacking in passion. An old friend (the gloomy Michel Piccoli) tries to seduce her, but gets no response from her. He said, "It's your virtue that interests me." Perhaps that's why she's not interested in it: she doesn't want a man who thinks she's virtuous, but a man who doesn't think she's virtuous. Virtuous people.
She walked down the street, slowly approaching a luxurious apartment building where Madame Anaïs ran the famous brothel. The camera is on her feet (Bunuel is famous for her fascination with feet). She stopped, turned and walked away. In the end, she rang the doorbell and walked in. Mrs. Anais (the elegant, lifelike Genevieve Page) greeted her and asked her to wait in the office for a while. Here, Deneuve's face still showed no emotion. Absolutely not. After that, she learned about the rules of this brothel, thought about it for a while, and finally accepted them one by one. She became a "day beauty".
There are no sweaty sportsman sex scenes in this movie. There's almost no nudity, it's just that discreet. The really sexy stuff in this movie is all happening in Severina's mind. We have to guess how she feels. The only unmistakable thing she ever said was, "I can't help myself." A lot of that happens off-screen. One of the most famous scenes in the film—in fact, one of the most memorable scenes in film history—is when a guest shows her a beautiful little box. He showed her what was inside, hoping to use it with her for the next hour. She shook her head and refused. What exactly is in the box? We never knew.
Imagine this scene, it's been so many years since I first watched "Beauty in the Day" and I've been wondering what's in the box. If it were the stupid way of filming in Hollywood today, we'd definitely see what's in the box, and then Sevrina would still shake her head like that, and then in ten minutes, we'd have forgotten about the scene.
In "Beauty in the Day", erotic things are only hinted and alluded to. The missing chain in the middle needs to be completed by our own imagination. Watch Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone's shower scene in "The Specialist," or Demi Moore and Mike Douglas' "harassment" scene in "Disclosure" , leaving no room for imagination at all. We see every drop of sweat, every inch of skin, hungry lips, fighting bodies; but we are still outsiders. We're just voyeurs watching them busy on the screen doing things we can't be a part of. This is just a technical presentation.
But in "Beauty by the Day," we're also drawn into the secret world of Severina. We had to fill in her thoughts ourselves, and in the process, these became our thoughts as well. Buñuel is well aware of how engaged and engrossed people are with their fantasies. The guests waited in the room, and Sevrina walked in, with no curiosity, no fear or anticipation - let alone desire - because what she saw in her eyes was not the room, but herself. . What excites her is not what she finds in the room, but the very fact that she walks into the room.
Luis Buñuel, one of the few true masters of cinema, looked at human nature with a cynical, withdrawn gaze; he looked at his characters with a bewilderment as they became victims of desire and greed . But he also had some sympathy for them, but only to a limited extent. He understands why Severina is drawn to the brothel, but he doesn't stop there, and doesn't let the story rest on her afternoon adventures. He kept on pushing until that bizarre ending, when she finally got what she really wanted.
I don't want to give away the ending of the story. But watch for a street shootout near the end of the film. Buñuel didn't linger on it; in fact, he finished the scene in a perfunctory way, as if he was desperate to get it out of the way. This shootout is necessary to explain what happens next; but that's about it. Today's directors are more obsessed with style than story, and if they were asked to do it, they would have lingered on the shootout for a long time -- laying it out as one big scene, giving the film an action climax. But that would be all wrong, and Bunuel wouldn't do it.
over
View more about Belle de Jour reviews
