The Monday Project is still relatively new. Yet 15 weeks in, I’m startled by the number of connections I’m seeing between the new (OLD) movies in the Monday line-up and those tattered favorites that I’ve seen 100 times. Nothing is new. Everything is derivative (in its own way.) Case in point: Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967).
Tell me if this sounds like anyone you know. A beautiful blonde, virginal and post-card perfect in that Stepford Wife sort-of-way, leads a double-life that descends into promiscuous sex, bizarre fetishes, prostitution and a violent tragedy. If you’re thinking about Laura Palmer, that means you’re already familiar with Twin Peaks (or better still, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.) And if you’ve been to Twin Peaks, then you already know the terrible (and absurb) kind of spirit that lurks in Belle de Jour. Make no mistake. Belle de Jour is its own fish. Twin Peaks was a television show that hinged on a lot of strange and surreal characters navigating eccentric small town patterns. Belle de Jour is not quite the same Lynch-ian experience, but the central song is the same. Blondes like to have their secrets.
Belle de Jour (Catherine Deneuve), the eponymous character of the film, seems to me to be an interpretation of Laura Palmer just a few years past her big date with Bob. She’s no longer the homecoming queen, though it’s possible she was at one time (do they have homecoming in Europe?) She is newly married to a successful Parisian doctor who thinks she is the sun rising and setting. But for all his affection, he doesn’t seem to understand her at all, and that disconnect drives her deep into her own fantasies. She is cold and aloof, often seeming to be outside of what’s happening and privy to things that other characters are not. She also has those eyes – those icy eyes that stare off into space, as if the person inside has escaped somewhere else. She speaks very little in the film. She seems to drift like she’s lost; however, there’s no question that she is (almost) always in control of what is happening to her.
Let me address those fantasies for a moment. The film is 37-years old and it sent chills through me the way that very few 21st Century movies do. The opening fantasy sequence, sprung from the daydreams of Belle de Jour, caught me by complete surprise and unsettled me for most of the film (particularly the final scenes.) There is also a section.at the exact mid-point of the film that so complete surprised me that I believe I made one of those embarrassing movie-theatre exclamations. It might have been as simple as an "oh" or a "Jesus", but there’s no question my legs went cold. These are good feelings. Lord knows you don’t want this kind of dread and anxiety in your everyday life, but in the context of a movie, particularly an old movie, these are good feelings indeed.
I’ve written before about how much I love LOVE LOVE surprises in the Monday night line-up. Belle de Jour was such a surprise. This was first French film of the Project and the second film (after Ikiru) to carry that film school baggage of being maybe too artsy or too snooty to be purely enjoyed. The subject matter didn’t appeal to me in any way. In fact, after reading the synopsis at http://www.allmovie.com/, I was prepared for a soft-core erotic European film of the sort found on late-night TV. This isn’t really any of those things (well, OK – I guess it is French.) Belle de Jour is about sex (and more particularly deviant sex) to be sure, but it was not created to titillate the audience or exploit Deneuve. In fact, there is absolutely no nudity or on-screen sex in the entire film. Buñuel cuts away during the actual act of intercourse in every instance, choosing instead to leave Belle de Jour’s bedroom adventures (or the consumation of said adventures) to the imagination of the viewer. This may have been a consequence of the
censors at the time, but like Jaws (where mechanical shark problems forced the monster to be kept off-camera), the film is more effective for what it doesn’t show.
What Buñuel does leave in the film are the absurd customers and the frankly bizarre sexual situations that Belle de Jour finds herself in. And they are hilarious or intriguing, each and every one. There are no straight-forward Johns in the picture it seems. Every man who comes to visit Belle de Jour has a secret fetish or kink that surprises and (sometimes) shocks. I’ve already mentioned the effectiveness of the set-piece at the centre of the film, but I haven’t mentioned the other note-worthy clients: the total Odd Job imposter with the mysterious buzzing box or the Professor who wants only to be scolded (well, scolded and spanked) by the ladies. I had no idea before watching the film that I would actually have fun simply watching the men who came to the brothel for sex.
Finally, and this is neither here nor there, but Catherine Deneuve in this period reminds me an awful lot of Nicole Kidman. More than once, as she surfed the Parisian streets or found herself with a customer, my thoughts returned to Eyes Wide Shut. There is a scene in Eyes Wide Shut that shuts me down whenver I see it: I’m thinking of Nicole Kidman confessing to her husband her deepest fantasies of infidelity, even as it’s the very last thing he wants to hear. It occurred to me after watching Belle de Jour that Eyes Wide Shut now has a whole new series of connections. For one, Kidman’s confession echoes back forcefully to Buñuel’s film, suggesting that Kubrick and Buñuel were both playing with skeletons from the same closet. And for another, Cruise’s mad quest for infidelity now seems to me to be the perfect flip-side to Belle de Jour’s story. The same and different in every way.
Now see how this Monday Project is making everything better?
This upcoming Monday should bring Patton and a scenery-chewing George C. Scott. Colour me delighted.
Tell me if this sounds like anyone you know. A beautiful blonde, virginal and post-card perfect in that Stepford Wife sort-of-way, leads a double-life that descends into promiscuous sex, bizarre fetishes, prostitution and a violent tragedy. If you’re thinking about Laura Palmer, that means you’re already familiar with Twin Peaks (or better still, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.) And if you’ve been to Twin Peaks, then you already know the terrible (and absurb) kind of spirit that lurks in Belle de Jour. Make no mistake. Belle de Jour is its own fish. Twin Peaks was a television show that hinged on a lot of strange and surreal characters navigating eccentric small town patterns. Belle de Jour is not quite the same Lynch-ian experience, but the central song is the same. Blondes like to have their secrets.
Belle de Jour (Catherine Deneuve), the eponymous character of the film, seems to me to be an interpretation of Laura Palmer just a few years past her big date with Bob. She’s no longer the homecoming queen, though it’s possible she was at one time (do they have homecoming in Europe?) She is newly married to a successful Parisian doctor who thinks she is the sun rising and setting. But for all his affection, he doesn’t seem to understand her at all, and that disconnect drives her deep into her own fantasies. She is cold and aloof, often seeming to be outside of what’s happening and privy to things that other characters are not. She also has those eyes – those icy eyes that stare off into space, as if the person inside has escaped somewhere else. She speaks very little in the film. She seems to drift like she’s lost; however, there’s no question that she is (almost) always in control of what is happening to her.Let me address those fantasies for a moment. The film is 37-years old and it sent chills through me the way that very few 21st Century movies do. The opening fantasy sequence, sprung from the daydreams of Belle de Jour, caught me by complete surprise and unsettled me for most of the film (particularly the final scenes.) There is also a section.at the exact mid-point of the film that so complete surprised me that I believe I made one of those embarrassing movie-theatre exclamations. It might have been as simple as an "oh" or a "Jesus", but there’s no question my legs went cold. These are good feelings. Lord knows you don’t want this kind of dread and anxiety in your everyday life, but in the context of a movie, particularly an old movie, these are good feelings indeed.
I’ve written before about how much I love LOVE LOVE surprises in the Monday night line-up. Belle de Jour was such a surprise. This was first French film of the Project and the second film (after Ikiru) to carry that film school baggage of being maybe too artsy or too snooty to be purely enjoyed. The subject matter didn’t appeal to me in any way. In fact, after reading the synopsis at http://www.allmovie.com/, I was prepared for a soft-core erotic European film of the sort found on late-night TV. This isn’t really any of those things (well, OK – I guess it is French.) Belle de Jour is about sex (and more particularly deviant sex) to be sure, but it was not created to titillate the audience or exploit Deneuve. In fact, there is absolutely no nudity or on-screen sex in the entire film. Buñuel cuts away during the actual act of intercourse in every instance, choosing instead to leave Belle de Jour’s bedroom adventures (or the consumation of said adventures) to the imagination of the viewer. This may have been a consequence of the
censors at the time, but like Jaws (where mechanical shark problems forced the monster to be kept off-camera), the film is more effective for what it doesn’t show.What Buñuel does leave in the film are the absurd customers and the frankly bizarre sexual situations that Belle de Jour finds herself in. And they are hilarious or intriguing, each and every one. There are no straight-forward Johns in the picture it seems. Every man who comes to visit Belle de Jour has a secret fetish or kink that surprises and (sometimes) shocks. I’ve already mentioned the effectiveness of the set-piece at the centre of the film, but I haven’t mentioned the other note-worthy clients: the total Odd Job imposter with the mysterious buzzing box or the Professor who wants only to be scolded (well, scolded and spanked) by the ladies. I had no idea before watching the film that I would actually have fun simply watching the men who came to the brothel for sex.
Finally, and this is neither here nor there, but Catherine Deneuve in this period reminds me an awful lot of Nicole Kidman. More than once, as she surfed the Parisian streets or found herself with a customer, my thoughts returned to Eyes Wide Shut. There is a scene in Eyes Wide Shut that shuts me down whenver I see it: I’m thinking of Nicole Kidman confessing to her husband her deepest fantasies of infidelity, even as it’s the very last thing he wants to hear. It occurred to me after watching Belle de Jour that Eyes Wide Shut now has a whole new series of connections. For one, Kidman’s confession echoes back forcefully to Buñuel’s film, suggesting that Kubrick and Buñuel were both playing with skeletons from the same closet. And for another, Cruise’s mad quest for infidelity now seems to me to be the perfect flip-side to Belle de Jour’s story. The same and different in every way.
Now see how this Monday Project is making everything better?
This upcoming Monday should bring Patton and a scenery-chewing George C. Scott. Colour me delighted.
No comments:
Post a Comment