Fantasy Films Wiki
What does the film “Belle de Jour” suggest about female sexuality?
“Séverine Serizy is a young, beautiful housewife who has masochistic daydream fantasies about elaborate floggings and bondage. She is married to a doctor (Jean Sorel) and loves him, but cannot share physical intimacy with him. A male friend, Monsieur Husson, (Michel Piccoli) mentions a high-class brothel to Séverine, also confessing his desire for her, and she secretly manages to work at the brothel during the afternoon (using the pseudonym Belle de jour). The brothel is run by Madame Anaïs, (Geneviève Page). Séverine will only work from two to five o’clock each day, returning to her blissfully unaware husband in the evening, but she attends only intermittently.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_de_jour
Do women have to hide their desires, their secrets? Is it ironic for a woman to find liberation in prostitution and S&M?
I’ve always loved French movies for their freedom of speech and expressing the true desires of male and female human beings. I think it was Catherine’s best role in a movie so far ! Catherine Deneuve was the rebel in this movie. The cause of her sexual problems seemed to be tied to her past. She is sexually repressed and only starts coming out of her shell after she starts prostituting herself to strangers.
She really just needed to be treated by her husband in the same brutal manner she was always fantacizing about. Madamme Annais was a definite user of people and didn’t really care why Belle was doing what she was doing. It was all about money to her.
Catherine Deneuve’s perky body being flashed repeatedly on the screen and the angst of sexual repression speaks of the sixties, a justification for the sexual revolution that would culminate in the discovery of aids. A disease that is currently being used to bring back that same sexual repression.
Severine, aka Belle, certainly was in the dark about her own sexuality. It is odd that with the decades of sex education taught in public schools that people are still pretty messed up.
The film also showed the damage that can come from puritanism. Severine’s inability to discuss her problems came from her moralist sense of propriety. If she had just discussed her hangups with her husband and perhaps bought herself a black leather outfit and handcuffs she might have led a long and healthy life!
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