Matisse Ventura
MCLG 522
4/15/14
The simplest and most ubiquitous plot summary provided in analyses and introductions of Buñuel’s 1967 production, Belle de Jour, starring Catherine Deneuve as Séverine/Belle de Jour, is that Séverine is a masochist and the way in which she brings her perversions and fantasies to actuality is by becoming a prostitute during her free weekday afternoons (Sabbadini 7). This is often stated as an obvious and given fact. While a strong argument for this interpretation certainly can be made, I will not start my review with this simplistic view of the plot, as it is too widely accepted by film critics and should be questioned just as all other aspects of the film are.
In contrast to Buñuel’s L’Age d’Or (1930), Belle de Jour, at the surface level (meaning the clearly connected plot and sequential events), can definitely be seen as a more “conventional” film, however, in some ways it is more confusing and disorienting than that clearly surrealist film aforementioned. Belle de Jour is based on the 1928 novel by Joseph Kessel of the same name, in which an attractive young bourgeois wife refuses to have sex with her handsome, desirable husband and instead begins to work as a prostitute in a brothel, which she hides from him until the very end. The movie follows the structure of the novel fairly closely with the exception of several dream/fantasy sequences interspersed throughout the film that are purely the work of Buñuel. The confusing element comes into play when it is not immediately obvious to the viewer that these are in fact dream sequences as they lack many of the signals Buñuel often includes in his work to distinguish them, such as drums or chimes. In fact, the movie is almost completely void of sound, and no score accompanies it, lending it a kind of timeless feel, which he would not be able to do had he included popular music of the day.
The film differs from the novel also in the ending, which is shot in a way that can be interpreted as offering three different possible outcomes (Sarris, 294). In both the novel and the film, it appears that Husson tells Pierre everything, but it is not explicitly shown, leaving room for doubt in the viewer’s mind. In the novel, however, Severine confesses to him herself. By contrast, in the film she does not confess and she is neither rewarded nor punished. Interestingly, the film closes in the same way it opens, with the question, “Séverine, what are you thinking about?” (Sarris 295) which at first glance could be the suggestion that the entire film was an elaborate dream sequence, as argued by one French critic, but is not likely based on knowledge of Buñuel’s particular surrealist style (Sarris 294).
While the argument can be made that Séverine is a masochist and being a prostitute satisfies these desires by the nature that is it demeaning from the novel alone, Buñuel’s added dream sequences lend much more strength to this argument. In each, Séverine is seen abused in some way by the men around her. In some she is tied up, shot at, has mud thrown on her, is raped, is beaten, etc. These sequences are interpreted as her daydreams by being followed by the question, “Séverine, what are you thinking about?” but I fail to see strong evidence that these are meant to be seen as desired by her. It seems like something assumed by the author based on possible projections of their own rather than supported by logic and evidence.
I do see supporting evidence in the sequences at the brothel, in which she appears at ease, in her element, and even satisfied after certain encounters, which is very much in contrast to her demeanor at home. However, when many critics point to her desire to work in a brothel and her refusal to be intimate with her stereotypically desirable husband as a desire to be demeaned, I see it as possibly telling what she thinks of her own self-worth as a result of the molestation she suffered as a child, which is revealed to us in a flashback/memory sequence. Knowing that experiences of rape and molestation often lead to confusion and feelings of being unclean and unworthy in the victims, it seems more likely that Séverine refuses her husband’s advances not because he is too kind and too considerate of her when she in fact desires him to be less so, but rather because she feels unworthy of his devotion. There is the possibility that she turns to the brothel not because she seeks out a submissive situation in which to gain her own sexual satisfaction, but perhaps because she feels it is where she belongs, as someone whose purity and honor had been compromised as a child.
The arguments of some that we are shown the sequence of possible molestation in order to reveal that “her psychic need for brutal degradation” was “first awakened by a malodorous molester” (Sarris 290) is both horribly disrespectful to victims of molestation and dangerous in the way it perpetuates rape culture. It is far too dismissive of the complicated psychological after-effects of an experience such as Séverine’s to argue that it merely awakened the need to be degraded rather than caused it by damaging her feelings of self-worth and removes all culpability from the molester. While a strong argument for Séverine having masochistic desires can be made, it is entirely too dismissive of the effects of molestation to not include in the discussion the possibility that we are seeing results of her trauma rather than just one person’s particular sexual desires. Both possibilities should be considered as sexual trauma is far too delicate and damaging of a situation to be taken lightly. Therefore, Belle de Jour could be seen as a study in how we humans go about understanding, expressing and satisfying our sexual desires, regardless of from where they originated.
Aside from a possible light-handed treatment of the tricky subject of sexual molestation, the movie does have an overall subversive message of the status quo, as Buñuel’s films typically do. True to surrealist ideals, Buñuel seeks to upend various roles or power structures of society. In the case of Belle de Jour, it is the gender paradigm which is subverted. Even without punishing or rewarding Séverine at the end of the film, her ability to utilize a clearly patriarchal system usually used to degrade and control women (prostitution) to her own advantage (to fulfill her sexual needs) is powerfully subversive and sophisticated.
Obras Citadas
Sabbadini, Andrea. “Of Boxes, Peepholes, and Other Perverse Objects. A Psychoanalitic Look at Luis Buñuel’s Bell de Jour” Williams, Peter & Isabell Santaolalla. Luis Buñuel. New Readings. London. BFI, 2004. p. 117-127.
Sarris, Andrew. “The Beauty of Belle de Jour.” En Mellen, Joan. The World of Luis Buñuel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978 p.289-296.
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