Belle de Jour (40th Anniversary)

Undoubtedly Luis Buñuel’s most accessible 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 icy with ennui until she takes a day-job in a brothel. There she meets a charismatic but sinister young gangster (Pierre Clémenti), and ignites an obsession that will court peril.

Expertly dramatising the collision between fantasy and reality, and between depravity and respectable bourgeois values, Buñuel, 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.

Extra DVD Features:
• Histoire du Film documentary about Belle De Jour (30 mins)
• Theatrical trailer
• Commentary from Spanish Cinema expert, Professor Peter William Evans

“Undoubtedly Bunuel’s masterpiece”
Time Out

“Stunning ice-maiden Deneuve arguably in her best role ever, this witty, erotic and elegant piece
Empire