Belle de Jour

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Belle de Jour (1967) deals with a woman who is sexually frigid in her socially standardized life with her conformity adhering husband. For her to physically liberate her passions she experiences fantasies, which she eventually plays out in real life. But, the movie suggests that when one’s inner life becomes very strong, it feels more real and fulfilling than what one outwardly experiences, and the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur.

 

Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) has sexual fantasies about bondage and even sexual assault, and that would indicate the opposite of a feminist empowerment theme in and of itself. But, as Roger Ebert pointed out in his book, The Great Movies, the feelings are hers, not some man’s. She owns them, and thus, for her, the result is liberating. 

 

The first shot is of Severine riding through the woods in a horse-drawn carriage with her handsome doctor husband, Pierre (Jean Sorel). Forests are traditionally used in literature as the place where sinful deeds occur (think, The Scarlet Letter and Tess of the d’Urbervilles). Horses are also typically associated with male sexuality. There is a shot upward of a tall tree, picturing it like a phallic symbol. But this romantic scene is undercut as Pierre says things would be “perfect” if she wasn’t so “cold” towards him. She resists his attempt to hug her, and does not want to talk about their intimacy problem. As Ebert points out, the sound of the carriage bell is a sort of personal trigger to ignite Severine’s inner sexual desires. Pierre suddenly becomes a brute and has the men driving the carriage drag her into the woods, whip her and, it is implied, one of the men rapes her. She says something about letting out the “cats,” and this reference recurs. Could it suggest something primal?

 

The next shot has Severine in bed and Pierre coming out of the bathroom. His wife tells him she was thinking of them riding in a carriage, and we realize the whole opening sequence was a sexual daydream, one she has had at other times, since Pierre comments that he has heard the carriage element before. So, her inner sexual fantasies have been recurring, illustrating her frustration at achieving outward satisfaction. Their one-year anniversary is the next day, and she is affectionate, kissing him. They have separate beds, and when he feels that she is inviting him into hers, his wife abruptly turns him away. It is in her mind that she experiences her physical enjoyment at this point.

 Severine and her husband meet Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli) and Renee Macha Meril) at a ski resort. When Renee says that Henri looks bored, his interesting comment is, “One’s never bored in a bar, unlike in a church, alone with one’s own soul.” Perhaps he is saying that doing something self-indulgent among similarly inclined people allows one to escape the somber examination of one’s psyche. In a way, his inner life is the opposite of Severine’s, at least at this point, who lives in her inner world. Before meeting them, Severine tells Pierre she doesn’t like the way Henri looks at her, which shows her resistance to outward sexual overtures. Henri ogles a couple of attractive women walking by, and Pierre comments that he should seek counseling for his “obsessions,” which Renee attributes to him being “rich and idle.” So, we know Henri is preoccupied with sex, especially the “hunt,” for women. He says that he has a “special weakness for the poor. I think of them when it snows, with no fur coats, no hope, no nothing.” His words are actually condescending, not compassionate, as he cares nothing of those less fortunate than his “rich” self. He only sees them as the victims of his “hunt.” 

 

Later, Renee tells Severine in a cab that a woman they know, Henriette, has been working as a prostitute at a bordello. She says how horrible it must be, and the cab driver reassures Severine that such places still exist. She seems like she is in a trance, and one can suspect that she may be having one of her fantasies. At her home, the maid says that flowers arrived from Henri. She is disturbed by this act and drops and breaks the vase holding the flowers. Is this a psychologically defensive move because she is worried that real life may cross over into her fabricated one? She repeats the action in her bathroom when she knocks over a bottle of perfume onto the floor. Is there a conflict between her outer reserve and her inner carnal drives? There is a quick scene of a young girl (Severine as a child) while an older man begins to molest her. Is that sexual abuse the incident that has helped to shape her conflicting outlooks on sex?

 

She asks Pierre if he ever visited a house of prostitution. He admits to having done so in the past. She seems curious about how it plays out in one of those places. He says that you chose a woman, spend some time, and then “you’re depressed all day.” He is implying that it is an emotionally empty experience. But, he says the reason men go to such places is because, “Semen retentum venenum est.” This Latin phrase, as IMDb notes, means that a man’s semen, if allowed to accumulate, acts like a poison on the male body. His explanation sounds like a medieval rationalization, but it also suggests symbolically that males, and their sex organs, are like venomous snakes. That may be why Severine tells her husband she doesn’t want to hear any more. Instinctively, she is drawn to men, but she is also repelled by their toxicity. She does want Pierre to stay with her until she falls asleep. He asks if she will ever grow up. Since we have seen a flashback of what happened when she was a child which may have ended her youthful innocence prematurely, it is no wonder that she wants to make up for some of that lost childhood.

 

At the tennis courts Severine briefly encounters Henriette. Henri is there, too and he and Severine discuss why a woman would become a prostitute. Henri says it is primarily for money and admits to frequenting high class brothels where he says the women are “complete slaves.” He describes the arrested development level of men who seek only sexual domination over women. However, he would not be able to understand that a woman like Severine is not a slave to men, but to her own passions. Henri makes advances toward Severine, but she resists. However, she remembers the address of where Henri visited the prostitutes.

 

Drawn by the dark allure of the bordello, she visits the high-class brothel run by Madame Anais (Genevieve Page). As she enters the building, she envisions a church with her as a child where she refuses the priest’s offering of holy communion. Most likely the young Severine felt unworthy to take the sacrament after her encounter with the older man. Madame Anais sizes her up quickly, and says she is “fresh,” which is what the men like. That implies that men enjoy desecrating the inexperienced. They like a woman who is virginal but who they can take credit for arousing her prurient desires. Severine at first wants to flee, but Madame Anais is forceful, appealing to Severine’s desire for dominance, and gets Severine to commit to working at her place. Severine has one condition, which is that she only works in the afternoon. She wants to keep her time in the underbelly of society concealed. Maybe because she feels frightened by what she is contemplating, she goes to see Pierre at the hospital and seeks refuge in his respectable world. But, he is having lunch with his boss, so she is not given the shelter she sought. 

 

Director Luis Bunuel has a shot of Severine’s shoes as she scales the steps to Madame Anais’s place. Her feet swivel back and forth, which demonstrates her ambivalence in proceeding with her plan. (Ebert suggests that Bunuel here and elsewhere in the movie is addressing foot fetishes). She does knock on the door and Madame Anais reassures her that only well-bred women work there and that is why she had to fire someone who was “vulgar.” One might see that attitude as hypocritical given the services provided there. On the other hand, the story may be suggesting that there are various levels of quality that the business world offers, so why do they not pertain to the prostitution profession?  

 

Anais gives Severine a kiss, possibly to warm her to what is to come. She says Severine must make up a business name and Anais dubs her “Belle de Jour,” since she is there for the afternoon only. IMDb says that name is the same as a lily that only blooms during the day, which is interesting, since it implies that this sexual adventure allows the repressed Severine to blossom. It is also a play on “belle de nuit,” which is a woman of the night, or a prostitute. But, it can also suggest that she is the special of the day on a menu, like the soup du jour. That take on her name implies the idea of satisfying physical appetites. 

 

She takes down her hair for the first time, which adds to her shedding her socially restricted compliances. Anais introduces her new employee to a man in the candy business (possibly suggesting what a pedophile uses to attract young girls?). There are other women there and they greet Severine, making her feel at home in this house of ill repute. The man opens a champagne bottle, which denotes the existence of a classy environment. But it also can be taken for a phallic symbol, since, as the liquid spills over, there may be the suggestion of a man reaching a climax. That idea is solidified when he gives one of the women a tin that has paper snakes shooting out of it when it is opened. Severine does not join in with the fun, and when the man starts to try to take her forcefully, she pushes him off as she is wrestling with what she is doing there. Anais seems to recognize that Severine needs a forceful push to get her to submit, and she orders her to go to the client. Severine initially struggles, but surrenders to him, too, when he is demanding. Perhaps her behavior reflects what happened to her as a child, being forced to allow a dominant person to exploit her sexually.

 

Severine leaves the brothel in her conservative clothes, with her hair tucked under her hat, again assuming the role of a socially acceptable member of society. When she gets home, she washes herself and burns her underclothes, as if she must purge her experience so her husband will not suspect her extramarital actions. There is the sound of bells again, signaling another fantasy. There is a pasture with cows and Severine is bound to a wood frame as Henri shovels mud and tosses it onto her while yelling sexually derogatory words at her. Humiliation is associated with sexual release again, mirroring Severine’s past. 

 

Severine returns to the bordello after being away from there for a while and Anais is angry with her, saying Severine can’t behave as an amateur if she wants to work for her. One of the prostitutes admits she is only working so her family can have some money, and other jobs are not willing to pay her reasonable wages. Her words can be seen as a criticism as to how women are not properly reimbursed for legitimate jobs. Anais has her goddaughter show up, and she asks about how she is doing in school. The movie suggests that those employed in the sex trade are not automatically devoid of being socially responsible people. 

 Severine’s next client is Professor Henri (Marcel Charvey), who prefers the more sophisticated woman. (It is interesting that he shares the name “Henri” with Husson, implying that beneath the proper surface, all men are sexually obsessed). The Professor has brought a suitcase which contains whips along with other props. He is into role playing, and the confused Severine does not know how to participate in his games. He demands that another woman, Charlotte (Francoise Fabian) attend to him. In the adjacent room, Anais allows Severine to watch through a peephole as to how Charlotte handles herself. (It might remind us of Norman Bates in Psycho as he observes Marion Crane through a hole in his motel office. Hitchcock and Bunuel, here, remind us that we are voyeurs, too, as we spy on the lives of others as an audience). The Professor pretends to be a servant who is secretly in love with his superior, but he can’t do anything right for her. She literally walks on his body and uses his whip on him. It is a lesson in sadomasochism for Severine, which shows her that men, too, have sexual humiliation fantasies. However, when asked, Severine says to Anais that what she witnessed was “disgusting,” and she wonders how anyone could sink so low. But, she has done so in her own mind.

 

A noteworthy scene from this film now follows where a client has a box which produces a buzzing sound when he opens it, but the audience does not see what is inside. One can only speculate that it is associated with some type of fetish. Bunuel has said that it is left up to the viewer’s imagination what is in the box. But, although another woman there will not agree to the encounter with this client, Severine agrees to participate, showing how far she is willing to deviate from acceptable sexual practices. The man shakes a bell in his hand, reinforcing the idea that the sound is a sexual Pavlovian prompt for Severine. After the man leaves, Pallas (Muni), the maid, comes into the room where Severine lies on the bed. There is a towel that looks like it has blood on it. Pallas says to Severine that the man would have scared her, too. But a sedate Severine, who has not been disturbed by what happened, comments, “How would you know?” Severine has taken a big bite out of the fruit of the tree of carnal knowledge, and basically is saying that one can’t judge what one has not experienced.

 

The next scene contains a similar carriage that was at the beginning of the film, with the harness bells ringing. It stops in an outdoor setting where people sit at tables. Severine is sitting there, and the man riding in the carriage gets off and approaches Severine. He is dressed properly, but his long umbrella, given the context of the film, suggests a phallic symbol. He sits down next to her and she lies to him when he wants to know how to address her. She says, “Mademoiselle,” indicating her availability. She also gives her prostitute name, Belle de Jour. He says he has a cat named “Dark Beauty.” Again, the cat is mentioned, introducing a hint of bestial drives. He says he will pay her to come to his house for a religious ceremony. He talks of the autumn sun being black and seems preoccupied with death. The men driving the carriage are the same ones that were in the first scene, too. So, we are in another of Severine’s fantasies. 

 He is called the Duke (Georges Marchal) by a servant at his palatial house. The servant takes Severine’s clothes and she wears only a sheer black negligee and a black headdress. He enters with a camera (not unlike the maker of a film who is recording the actions of the actors?). He is creating a mock funeral, as Severine lies in a coffin, pretending to be dead. He calls her his daughter, which makes the whole scene perverse. We hear those cats purring again and the servant asks if he should let the cats in, contributing to the sexual atmosphere given the context of the film. He says he loved her too much. He sinks below the casket, which begins to rock. Severine looks down at him, and we can only imagine that he is perhaps masturbating. Incest and even a version of necrophilia is suggested, and it is another possible reference to Severine’s past trauma. Bunuel has no trouble addressing taboos in this film. As soon as she is done fulfilling the role she was assigned, she is rudely tossed out in the rain by the servant. She was brought in to satisfy the Duke’s decadent perversion, and must now be quickly dispensed with so as not to tarnish the hypocritical upper-class façade that must be maintained.

 

At home, Severine gets into bed with Pierre and cuddles with him. Although not having sex with her husband, she has warm feelings for him. It’s as if her sexual exploits in her hidden life are helping her overcome her marital inhibitions, at least up to a point. Henri visits Severine, but she refuses to see him. However, that does not stop her from fantasizing about having sex with him under a restaurant table while Pierre and Renee are present. This image suggests that people live two lives, one that is overtly socially acceptable, but beneath that restrained appearance exist primal drives that wish to be satisfied.

 

Two men, Marcel (Pierre Clementi) and Hyppolite (Francisco Rabal), attack a courier in an elevator to acquire what he is carrying. The scene establishes the rough and disreputable nature of Marcel. They visit the brothel. Hyppolite’s seedy nature is evident as he inquires after the young daughter of the servant Pallas, asking if she is old enough to be touched. Very sleazy. 

 

Marcel wears a leather coat, which makes him look tough, and he wields a long walking stick (another phallic symbol?). He has metal dentures because he says his front teeth were knocked out. The effect is that it shows him as a man of steel, not tenderness. Severine is submissive, even saying she will not charge him, as he fits into the dominant role of a man that she experienced as a child. He dismisses her because he sees a birthmark on her back, which disgusts him. This real-life humiliation probably reminds Severine of her past, which she recreates in various ways in her fantasies. Marcel, however, stays and we see them after they have had sex. She finds a scar on his back, which is most likely why he did not like the birthmark on her. It may have reminded him of his own flawed life (Hyppolite also has a scar on his face, which fits in with the damaged world that Severine is part of). She admits that he frightens her, and that implies an attraction for what is dangerous.

 

There is a short scene with Severine and Pierre on a desolate beach, which should imply fertility and sexuality. But it is chilly there, with only the two of them present, suggesting loneliness. Pierre is still struggling with Severine’s continuing aloofness, and he hoped getting away would help their relationship. Severine’s inner monologue reveals how she does not love anyone but her husband, but she is not able to accept sex existing in other than a manner that deviates from the norm.

 

Marcel is furious that Severine took off for a while when she was at the beach. He hits her with his belt once, but she does not accept that sadistic treatment from him at this point and says if he does it again she will not see him. She says her attraction to him is not like what she feels for Pierre, as she can’t seem to join her physical passion with her feelings of love.

 

Pierre is finding Severine happier now, but he wishes that she could want a child with him since that is what he most wishes, a way of consummating their love with sex that will result in a family. As they walk toward their car, Pierre sees a wheelchair on the sidewalk that catches his curiosity as to why it is sitting there unoccupied. It is a foreshadowing of what is to come. 

 

After a long absence, Henri shows up at Madame Anais’s place. He discovers Severine’s secret life as Belle de Jour. She will not have anything to do with him and threatens to jump out of the window if he comes near her. He says something significant when he declares that she likes being humiliated, but he does not. Henri can see what has been motivating Severine. She admits that she must eventually atone for her actions, but she feels powerless to leave this alternative lifestyle that she has adopted. She seems to have no free will to fight her sexual predisposition. She, of course, is worried that he will tell her husband, and decides to offer herself sexually to Henri to keep him quiet. He refuses because he was attracted to her “virtue.” He adds, “You were the wife of a boy scout. That’s all changed now.” Perhaps he made overtures toward her in the past because she represented to him what he could not be, a person of high standards. Did he want to drag her down to his level so as not to feel depraved? Now that he finds that she is just as subject to carnal desires as he is, he does not see her worthy of his debauched hunting. He even lords his own morality over her as he says he will not tell Pierre about her because, “I have principles, unlike you.”

 In another fantasy, Henri and Pierre appear in clothes of a prior century and have a duel, possibly for the favors of Severine. But when they fire their pistols, they miss each other and it appears that Pierre has wounded Severine. She is bound to a tree, another instance of her masochistic tendencies. She is bleeding from the forehead, but the violence only adds to the sexual excitement for her, and Pierre kisses her. It’s as if she will only accept her husband under duress, a sort of punishment for her transgressions. 

 

Severine tells Anais that she can’t work there anymore. Anais agrees because the dangerous Marcel has become more demanding, wanting to see Belle de Jour also at night, when she is not at the bordello. Anais is worried about how threatening men are when they become obsessive. Anais tells Severine that they were good together, and she seems to want to become friends, asking about contacting each other later. But, Severine shuts down that possibility, as she does not want her undercover life bleeding into her respectable one. Anais works in a socially shunned profession, but she still desires affectionate contact with others, like any other person. Severine seems to feel badly about being so abrupt with her, and appears to want to kiss Anais to make up for her harshness. But, Anais turns her head away after her attempt at making a connection was rejected.

 

Hyppolite follows Severine after she leaves the brothel, and later Macel shows up at her house, obviously informed of its location by Hyppolite, which shows how difficult and dangerous it is to live in both socially acceptable and unsavory worlds. This point is driven home when he calls her “Severine” instead of Belle de Jour, showing how he has now penetrated her respectable life. He wants her to spend a night with him at a hotel, otherwise he will wait for her husband and tell him everything. Severine at first welcomes the idea of confessing all to Pierre, especially after Henri found out about what she was doing. But she doesn’t want one of her clients around when she tells her husband what has been happening. She kisses Marcel, and, as he decides to leave, he says that he now sees that it is Pierre that is the “obstacle” that is keeping them apart.

 From inside Severine’s apartment we hear three shots being fired. Macel shot Pierre to eliminate the husband who represents the state of marriage in which sex is supposed to be confined. Marcel drives away at a high speed, but gets into an accident. As the police approach him, he fires his gun, and a cop eventually shoots him dead. The film is showing that when the deviant part of society reveals itself, the prevailing lawful part will do its best to eliminate it.

 

Pierre is now paralyzed from his wounds and occupies the wheelchair which is like the one that disturbed him earlier. He can’t talk or even see. Henri visits and comments on how prim and proper Severine looks, dressed like a schoolgirl, trying to fit in with the socially acceptable role of a supportive wife. Henri wants to tell Pierre about Severine’s work as a prostitute since he feels that Pierre is tortured by having a virtuous wife sacrificing her life tending to him. If he knows she is a tarnished person, Henri feels that Pierre will not feel so guilty about what his wife is doing. Severine said she would have to atone for her sins, and she does not prevent Henri from talking with Pierre. 

 

After Henri leaves, Severine joins Pierre. The only indication of the effect of learning what his wife has done are the tears running down his cheeks. Severine picks up a bit of knitting, looking very domestic, but which is not convincing for us since we know she can’t hide from the audience, or her husband now, what she has done, which has brought about the violence that has harmed her husband. 

 

There are the jingling sounds of the carriage again, and the purring of a cat, alerting us to another fantasy. (Ebert suggested that the cat could imply that Severine is operating at the instinctual level, which is more animalistic than human). Pierre now appears to be fine. The couple plan on getting away together for a while. It is only in her dreams that she can actually hope for a happy, conforming life. But, she goes to the balcony as the sound of the bells becomes louder, and there is the same carriage as at the beginning of the story, which brings the tale full circle, suggesting that Severine will always be inhabiting her alternative mindscape.

The next film is Humoresque.