Belle De Jour

Belle de jour is a 1967 French film starring Catherine Deneuve as a woman who decides to spend her days as a prostitute while her husband is at work. The title is the French name of the daylily (literally: "daylight beauty"), a flower that blooms only during the day, but also refers to a prostitute whose trade is conducted in daytime. The film was directed by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel.

Plot

Séverine Serizy is a young, beautiful housewife who has masochistic daydream fantasies about elaborate floggings and bondage. She is married to a doctor (Jean Sorel) and loves him, but cannot share physical intimacy with him. A male friend, Monsieur Husson, (Michel Piccoli) mentions a high-class brothel to Séverine, also confessing his desire for her, and she secretly manages to work at the brothel during the afternoon (using the pseudonym Belle de jour). The brothel is run by Madame Anaïs, (Geneviève Page). Séverine will only work from two to five o'clock each day, returning to her blissfully unaware husband in the evening, but she attends only intermittently.

As the film progresses, Séverine becomes entangled with Marcel, a young gangster, who offers her the thrills and excitement contained in her fantasies. The situation becomes more complicated when Séverine decides to leave the brothel, with Madame Anaïs' agreement, after finding Marcel has become too demanding, and jealous of her husband. Husson has also discovered her secret as a potential, though unwilling, client. One of the gangster's associates tracks Séverine to her home address. Marcel visits her, and threatens to reveal her hidden identity, but Séverine persuades him to leave.
He waits outside for her husband to return home and shoots him three times before escaping and eventually being shot by the police. Séverine's husband survives the event, but is left in a coma. The police are unable to find a motive for the attempted murder of Séverine's husband, but after he leaves hospital, now blind and in a wheelchair, Husson visits him and may have told him the truth.
The film ends with Séverine escaping into fantasy once more; this time, however, there are no sexual undertones. Her husband is healthy again and they kiss before looking out the window on to the opening scene of the film.

Awards


The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1967.

Cast

Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy, alias Belle de Jour

Jean Sorel as Pierre Serizy
Michel Piccoli as Henri Husson
Geneviève Page as Madame Anaïs
Pierre Clémenti as Marcel
Georges Marchal as Duke
Françoise Fabian as Charlotte
Macha Méril as Renée
Marguerite Muni as Pallas
Maria Latour as Mathilde