MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Belle de Jour dramatizes the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favorite themes of director Luis Bunuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree, and gang-raped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighboring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality dichotomy extends to the final scenes, in which we are offered two possible endings. Thanks to a question of copyright and ownership, Belle de Jour disappeared from view shortly after its 1967 release, not even resurfacing on videotape. When it was reissued theatrically in 1994, many critics placed the perplexing but mesmerizing film on their lists of that year's best films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (Vistavision)
• Audio: PCM Mono, 5.1
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: English
• Features:
  • Feature commentary track with Bunuel scholar Julie Jones
  • English-dubbed track
  • Original U.S. theatrical trailer
  • 1995 re-release trailer
  • Dolby Digital mono sound
  • Widescreen [1.66:1]

AWARDS

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Won Golden Lion - 1967 (Luis Buñuel)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Luis Buñuel

• Producer:

  Luis Buñuel, Raymond Hakim, Robert Hakim

• Screenwriter:

  Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière

• Book Author:

  Joseph Kessel

• Cinematographer:

  Sacha Vierny

• Editor:

  Walter Spohr, Louisette Hautecoeur

• Art Director:

  Robert Clavel

• Costume/Wardrobe:

  Yves Saint Laurent

REVIEW:

• Director Luis Buñuel's first film in color, Belle de Jour also kicked off the last phase of his great career, which produced some of his most popular films (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire). Catherine Deneuve serves Buñuel here as Grace Kelly did Alfred Hitchcock, as the glacially beautiful blonde who is barely concealing smoldering desires. Séverine, Deneuve's character, finds that marriage is not the beginning of contentment, but a key which unlocks the doors of her abusive past to allow her imagination to run unfettered. How many of the film's events are "real" is left up to the viewer; Buñuel clearly wants to blur the distinctions between Séverine's erotic dreams and her attempts to fulfill them. A lesser filmmaker would wallow in the prurience of the story of a sexually frustrated wife turning to prostitution; for Buñuel, however, making films about sex is about exploring much more than human desire and physical contact. What makes his approach unique is its playfulness; he can have it both ways, provoking the audience one moment and winking the next, as if to say, "This thing we call life, it's a big joke, isn't it?" ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi