BELLE DE JOUR

Year: 1967
UK: Optimum Releasing
Cast: Catherine Denueve, Jean Sorel, Pierre Clementi, Michel Piccoli, Genevieve Page, Françoise Fabian, Macha Meril, Muni, Maria Latour, Claude Cerval, Michel Charrel, Iska Khan, Bernard Musson, Marcel Charvey, François Maistre, Francisco Rabal, Georges Marchal, Francis Blanche
Director: Luis Bunuel
Countries: France / Italy
Language: French (English subtitles)
UK: 100 mins
UK Certificate: 18 contains strong sexual theme and fetish scenes
UK Release Date: 29 December 2006 (Limited Re-release - London, NFT)
UK DVD Release Date: 22 January 2007
NFT
UK Distributor

Synopsis

Undoubtedly Luis Bunuel's most accessible film, BELLE DE JOUR is being re-released to celebrate its 40th Anniversary with a brand new print. An elegant and erotic masterpiece BELLE DE JOUR maintains its hypnotic a grip on modern audiences as it did when it was originally released.

Screen icon Catherine Deneuve (REPULSION) plays Severine, the glacially beautiful, sexually unfulfilled wife of a surgeon, whose blood runs icy with ennui until she takes a day-job in a brothel. There she meets a charismatic but sinister young gangster (Pierre Clementi), and ignites an obsession that will court peril.

Bunuel uses diffused lighting, dark colors, and shadows throughout the film to temper the gravity and emotional impact of each uncomfortable scene. Left to our own imaginative devices, the result is a film that is highly unsettling, perverse, and inevitably tragic.