Line #29 Film/BelleDeJour


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/catherine_deneuve_gallery_6_3081.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: Bored? Try being a hooker.]]
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4	->''"It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best. That's because it understands eroticism from the inside-out--understands how it exists not in sweat and skin, but in the imagination."''
5	-->-- '''Creator/RogerEbert'''
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7	''Belle de Jour'' is one of the most famous films directed by [[Creator/LuisBunuel Luis Buñuel]]. It was based on Joseph Kessel's eponymous erotic novel. Released in 1967, it starred then-débutante Creator/CatherineDeneuve.
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9	Séverine (Deneuve) looks outwardly like the perfect {{Housewife}}. Beautiful, demure, well-mannered and impeccably groomed, she is the very image of bourgeois propriety. In fact she is a masochist who likes to fantasize about being humiliated and treated like a sex object. On the recommendation of a friend, she acts out on these fantasies by becoming a part-time sex worker in an upscale brothel. Since she only turns tricks during her husband's business hours, she is given the moniker Belle de Jour, "beauty of the day".
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11	Available from the Creator/TheCriterionCollection (No. 593).
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13	----
14	!!This film provides examples of:
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16	* AllJustADream: It's unclear what really happens and what just takes place in Séverine's overactive fantasy life.
17	* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Séverine is turned on by sex with her clients but has no interests in her affectionate husband.
18	* AllWomenAreLustful: Séverine at least clearly wants some rough sex.
19	* BandOfBrothels: Séverine's "colleagues".
20	* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Séverine (blonde) and her fellow sex workers Charlotte (brunette) and Mathilde (redhead).
21	* BookEnds: Starts with a carriage, ends with a carriage. Pierre asks Severine what she's dreaming about, and she responds, "you."
22	* CovertPervert: Séverine, the well-dressed, respectable housewife, who longs to be abused and humiliated, and goes to work as a sex worker.
23	* DefrostingIceQueen: Bunuel deliberately used Deneuve's appearance as a blond ice queen to emphasize the contrast between her straight-laced persona and her real inner self.
24	* EroticFilm: Based on the erotic novel by Joseph Kessel.
25	* {{Fetish}}: Séverine's is to be tied up and sexually abused by strangers.
26	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Pierre reflecting upon a wheelchair. At the end of the movie, he's paraplegic.
27	* GainaxEnding: Not even Luis Bunuel [[ShrugOfGod himself was entirely sure what it meant.]] The sound of the carriage bells, which in other scenes are associated with her sexual fantasies, implies that she is imagining the last scene.
28	* HighClassCallGirl: Séverine becomes a sex worker in a discriminating, boutique brothel.
29	* ILoveTheDead / IncestSubtext: The freakiest scene in the movie involves Séverine randomly meeting a stranger--not in her brothel, but when she's out and about--who invites her back to the mansion. The stranger has her dress up in a see-through robe, and then has her ''lie in a coffin''. The stranger then calls her his ''daughter'', before masturbating next to the coffin that contains a surprised Séverine.
30	* ImagineSpot: Some scenes are clearly Séverine's erotic fantasies, like the two scenes where her husband ties her up and sexually humiliates her, and the scene where she and Henri crawl under a table together while Pierre and Henri's wife idly chat. How much of the rest of the film is reality, and how much is Séverine's fantasies, is unclear.
31	* IndulgentFantasySegue: At least two scenes, the two scenes where Pierre is humiliating Séverine, are revealed to be her fantasies.
32	* TheMafia: Marcel and another client are part of it.
33	* MurderTheHypotenuse: Marcel attempts this on Séverine's husband. Doesn't work, and he gets killed in the process.
34	* NaughtyByNight: Inverted. Séverine is naughty by ''day'' (hence the title), because that's when her husband is at work.
35	* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Séverine's first job.
36	* RiddleForTheAges: One customer shows up with a small lacquered box, the contents of which cause Mathilde to recoil in shock. We'll never know what's in it.
37	* SecretSexWorker: Séverine is a picture perfect {{Housewife}} who is a [[NaughtyByNight secret masochist, craving to be sexually dominated]]. On the recommendation of a friend, she begins to prostitute herself during the daytime, while her husband works and is none the wiser.
38	* SexlessMarriage: Pierre is handsome, and clearly in love with Séverine, and wants to be intimate with her. She isn't interested.
39	* SingleIssuePsychology: One brief scene implies that Séverine was sexually abused as a child, but this is never followed up.
40	* SleepingSingle: Pierre and Severine don't share a bed.
41	%% * StalkerWithACrush: Marcel becomes this after paying for sex with Séverine.
42	* ATasteOfTheLash: Séverine fantasizes about being tied up and flogged on the back by two low class sorts in livery.
43	%% * ToplessnessFromTheBack: Catherine Deneuve, bringing the sexy.
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Context Film / BelleDeJour