Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day

"I have an idea. Would you like to be called "Belle de Jour?" Madame Anais

☆☆☆☆☆ Masterpiece 


Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day (1967) is the merging of fantasy and real worlds through erotica.


Directed by Luis Buñuel.


Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli among others.

While watching Belle De Jour I saw the scene below and completely understood what Buñuel was trying to say in this movie. Luis lived in a dream world and spent his entire film directing career trying to merge the dream world with reality. Buñuel started his film career with a dream filled short film Un Chien Andalou (1929) that has no meaning and finally achieved mixing the dream world with the real world in Belle De Jour.

The key to this film is the wheelchair in the scene below. Luis always gave audiences subtle, obscure visual hints in his films as our dreams give us images which give us insights into our subconscious. Anyways, its an odd moment when Jean stops to look at a wheelchair on a street corner. He makes a comment about it to Catherine then gets into their car and looks at the wheelchair as they drive off. I knew Luis was giving me a big clue, but it wasn't until the end that I understood what the wheelchair meant to the film as a whole. Buñuel later at the end of the film has Sorel blind and crippled in the same wheelchair from the street scene. At end of the film Jean opens his eyes, gets up out of the wheelchair and hugs and kisses and laughs with Deneuve. I then understood what the film was really saying about reality and dreams. Luis is saying that Catherine day-dreamed the entire prostitution scenes to escape her boring married sexual life. Deneuve had the money, the young, handsome surgeon husband, the couture clothing, the mansion in the city and country estate on the weekends. What she needed was a sadomasochistic husband who would defile and awakened her depraved sexual desires. In other words, this babe was really bent sexually and needed a fantasy life, so she could escape her boring reality and not throw it away. Catherine character is one smart cookie. Deneuve's character realized that if she followed her bent sexual desires it would destroy her privileged lifestyle, so she created her ideal depraved sexual life in a dream world of a happy hooker that only she could indulge in.

Film Scene

Trivia - The source material for Belle de Jour is Joseph Kessel's l929 novel, which Bunuel did not like, as he said: “I found it interesting to try to turn something I didn't like into something I did.

Film Trailer

Film Photos - Posters

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Film Script

Note - If you would like to view Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day to rent or buy please click on the link below the comments. It is sponsored by Google, so it is the safest and most secure way to get a copy for your film library.

Jag är nyfiken - en film i gult - I Am Curious Yellow

"What would the rest of you do if we were invaded?" Nyman

☆☆☆☆☆ Classic 


Jag är nyfiken - en film i gult - I Am Curious Yellow (1967) is a curiously funny and poetic film.

Directed by Vilgot Sjöman.

Starring Lena Nyman, Vilgot Sjöman, Börje Ahlstedt among many others.

Yellow is at first confusing, then frustrating, then it starts making sense. Nothing makes sense while you watch it until you see the irony and playfulness weaving in and out of the film. Vilgot has imbued his film with a uniquely Nordic sensibility, humor and craftiness that comes from living half the year in a dark, frozen climate. To understand the film I had to pause it, step back and reflect on what Sjöman was trying to say through his story and characters. The camera crews making a documentary of a documentary is what finally clued me into Vilgot odd sense of humor, wit and most of all irony. Sjöman's narrative style is multi-layered and it took me time to understand, because I was using subtitles. Basically, its a story that is being filmed as a documentary within a documentary about a confused young woman, trying to sort her life out while growing up in modern Sweden.

The explicit sex scenes made this a truly marketable film due to US Customs seizing the film and the subsequent legal proceeding that removed its obscenity status and opened the doors for porno films to be shown in public theaters. The film I Am Curious Yellow earned over $6 million in its initial 1969 US theatrical run.

The scene below helped me to understand the dark Nordic humor and playfulness in the film. Vilgot is making a documentary of a documentary of a documentary. In the scene, Lena can't get into the Yoga position, so the entire crew helps her by demonstrating their own positions.

Film Scene

Trivia - The Dr. Martin Luther King with the director Vilgot Sjöman interview occurred in Stockholm, Sweden in 1966.

Original Film Trailer

Original Marvel Comics The Amazing SpiderMan # 101 March 1971

Original Script

Le Samourai

"There is no greater solitude than that of the Samouri's, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle " The Bushido

☆☆☆☆☆ Masterpiece

Le Samourai (1967) is a master filmmakers crowning jewel.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.

Starring Alain Delon, Francois Perie and Nathalie Delon.

Le Samourai can best be described as a minimalists study of a solitary assassin's isolated life. I've attached the opening scene below to illustrate and illuminate the minimalists visual style. Look at the greys and blues in the scene below, it sets the tone and mood of the film. The cigarette smoke that lingers in the air over Alain Delon, who we suddendly realize is lying in bed, fully dressed. Delon is like a tiger in the jungle; silent, isolated and solitary, waiting for his prey.

Melville's quote in the opening credits from The Bushido does not exist, Jean-Pierre made that quote up himself. Melville intrigued me so, I read up on him. Melville was in the French army when Germany invaded France in WWII. So, when France put down its arms peacefully, Melville, went to Britain to fight against Hilter. Melville, became a hero for The French Underground who were fighting the Germans occupying France.

After the war when the French film unions would not let him join, he began his own film production company. Melville started making films without permission from writers he had taken material from and filmed on location (a rarity in France at the time) without French Film Permits. Melville went on to inspire The French New Wave filmmakers.  Melville, goes on to play the writer in Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave masterpiece, A Bout De Souffle - Breathless (1960). Later, Melville would renounced the very French New Wave movement he had inspired.

Alain, could be considered Melville's film alter ego, like Alfred Hitchcock's film alter ego was Cary Grant. Alain like Melville was a military man and not one to follow rules. Alain fought in Indochina as a French Marine. He was discharged from the Military after many fist fights with superiors. Alain, is oh so subtle in this film. This guy never took acting classes, but he was a born Method Actor. I love watching his thoughts run across his face as he carefully listens to his scene partners.

The producers of the James Bond films should have hired Alain to replace Sean Connery when Sean retired from the franchise. Ian Fleming wrote that James Bond's mother (Monique Delacroix Bond) was French. A French/Scottish lad working for Her Majesties Secret Service. The irony and background story would have been priceless. At only 5'10" he would have been on the short side, but Alain would be the same height as Daniel Craig, who is very much in the vain of Sean Connery, albeit with blond locks.

Film Scene

Trivia - The opening quote from The Bushido Book does not exist, Melville made it all up.

Film Trailer