Belle de Jour



"It is possibly the best-known erotic film of modern times, perhaps the best. That's because it understands eroticism from the inside-out--understands how it exists not in sweat and skin, but in the imagination."

- Roger Ebert

Belle de Jour is one of the most famous films directed by Luis Bunuel. Released in 1967, it starred then-débutante Catherine Deneuve.

Séverine (Deneuve) looks outwardly like the perfect Housewife. Beautiful, demure, well-mannered and impeccably groomed, she is the very image of bourgeois propriety. In fact she is a masochist who likes to fantasize about being humiliated and treated like a sex object. On the recommendation of a friend, she acts out on these fantasies by becoming a part-time prostitute in an upscale brothel. Since she only turns tricks during her husband's business hours, she is given the moniker Belle de Jour, "daytime beauty".

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Contains the following tropes:

 * All Girls Want Bad Boys
 * All Just a Dream: It's unclear what really happens and what just takes place in Séverine's overactive fantasy life.
 * All Women Are Prudes: Subverted hard.
 * Band of Brothels: Séverine's "colleagues".
 * Bastard Boyfriend: Marcel.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Séverine and her fellow prostitutes.
 * Covert Pervert: Séverine.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Bunuel deliberately used Deneuve's appearance as a blond ice queen to emphasize the contrast between her straight-laced persona and her real inner self.
 * Fetish: Séverine's is to be tied up and sexually abused by strangers.
 * Foreshadowing: Pierre reflecting upon a wheelchair.
 * Gainax Ending: Not even Luis Bunuel himself was entirely sure what it meant.
 * "It's Not Rape If You Enjoyed It": Séverine's first job.
 * Les Yay: The madam is obviously attracted to Séverine, though the latter feels ambivalent about it.
 * The Mafia: Marcel and another client are part of it.
 * Murder the Hypotenuse: Marcel attempts this on Séverine's husband.
 * Riddle for the Ages: One customer shows up with a small lacquered box, the contents of which cause a prostitute to recoil in shock. We'll never know what's in it.
 * Sexless Marriage
 * Yandere: Marcel.