Belle De Jour

undoubtedly luis bunuel s most accesible film belle de jour is an elegant and erotic masterpiece that maintains as hypnotic a grip on modern audiences as it did on its debut 40 years ago screen icon catherine deneuve repulsion plays severine the glacially beautiful sexually unfulfilled wife of a surgeon whose blood runs cold 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 expertly dramatizing the collision between fantasy and reality and between depravity and respectable bourgeois values brunuel working from the novel by joseph kessel fashions an immaculately designed the fetishistic interiors and production designs are astonishing and amoral comedy of manners long unavailable the film won the golden lion at the 1967 venice film festival