It is hardly a plea for sexual liberation - the men, even one that Séverine takes a fancy to, are pretty lowlife. The characters are convincing - the posh conservative elite, the matter-of-fact but certainly not coarse madame, the pervs who visit the brothel, and the psychologically conflicted Séverine through them all. Analysing it in Freudian or purely sexual terms is less than satisfying. The stylish settings arouse our aesthetic senses, and the languorous pacing and emotional complexity keep us trying to figure it all out long before we realise just how difficult that is going to be. Couture by Yves Saint Laurent and lush photography drown us in luxurious chic.
Scenes of Séverine having mud thrown at her stick in the mind no less than the tentativeness with which she approaches the brothel for the first time, dressed in black, and ready to take flight at any moment. Not through explicit nudity (it is a highly erotic work without being titillating) but by the shocking images, and the superb performances that contrast the aloofness of the bourgeoisie to the practicality of sex, of elegance to depravity. Re-released almost forty years after its original cinema exhibition, Belle de Jour still has the power to shock. Then she is shown 'a firm hand' - which the masochistic side of her nature relishes. At first she is prudish and wants to pick her clients. Taking fantasy a stage further, Séverine gets a daytime job at a high class brothel. He is attracted by her blonde perfection, her virtue and her icy disdain. An older friend, Henri, keeps hitting on her, but she tells him to keep his compliments for himself. Her husband Pierre ties her to a tree, whips her, then leaves her to be raped by the two carriage drivers. We meet her first when she is forced to dismount from a carriage. Séverine (Catherine Deneuve) is a bored, affluent housewife.
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