"Belle De Jour" An Intimate Look Behind the Mask
She lives the perfect life, or so it seems. Married to the rich Dr. Pierre Serizy, Severine Serizy lives a life of luxury and elegance. Yet she is missing something vital. Her marriage has not been consummated and her handsome husband, Pierre, waits in vain for her acceptance of his intimate affections.
We see inside the fragile, secret mind of Severine with flashbacks that suggest childhood sexual abuse and the shame connected with it. In another memory, we see her as a child at the altar, dressed to be baptized--refusing the flesh of Christ when it is offered to her by the priest.
Her daydreams reveal these images of sexual confusion when we see her in a carriage with her husband, who will later punish her by whipping her and offering her to the coachmen. It is a shocking revelation into the mind of a woman who has suffered sexual abuse as a child but wants release--a justification of pleasure and punishment.
Severine roams about her house lost in daze. She is clumsy and restless, as her daydreams tear her from her real life. She is left confused and separate from reality, like a child.
While out to lunch with her friend, Renée, Severine finds out an acquaintance of theirs is a prostitute at a whorehouse. Severine is both shocked and intrigued. Though she will not admit it, she wants to explore the darker side of this possibility. She dabbles in the subject by asking her husband if he has visited these places--but she doesn't reveal the real reason behind her probing questions.
With trepidation, she goes to her husband's friend, Henri Husson (a womanizer, who has previously flirted and stared at Severine), to ask for more details and he jokingly replies that he frequents such places, and as if on cue, gives her the address of a house he knows. The stage is now set for Severine.
Sounds of water flowing, sleigh bells jingling and cats meowing, offer strange insights to these daydreams. She wants to be punished but still cannot bring herself to talk to her husband about these desires she keeps inside herself.
Severine is like a separate personality to herself. She doesn't open herself to her husband, and his greatest complaint against her is that she never lets him into her secret world, or her body. She plays the perfect housewife, one who hasn't consummated their marriage, yet has shocking and lustful imaginings behind the mask she wears.
Her name connotes a severed being. The female version of the name, sever: to be forcibly cut or split. Disturbing as her name is, it is very accurate of her personality.
Soon Severine finds herself at the door of the whorehouse her husband's friend had led her to, a nondescript townhouse, in the middle of a neighborhood. She recklessly follows her curiosity and oddly hopes for an answer to the strange feelings she keeps inside.
She meets, Madame Anaïs (like the erotic writer, Anaïs Nin). Madame Anaïs convinces her that she is perfect for the part, Belle De Jour "A Woman of the Day", since Severine must always leave by five o'clock (which is also a time for mass prayers). Madame Anaïs tries to seduce her with a kiss, but Severine doesn't know what to make of this and she pulls away.
Severine is still hesitant about her prospective double life as a prostitute and visits her husband, making an excuse to see him. If he leaves with her, she will repent her decision to become a prostitute. Alas, he cannot leave work early--it is her only escape from this situation, but she doesn't tell him this. She wanted him to rescue her from this situation she has put herself in, but he doesn't know anything. She is left alone and now must follow through with her other life, as a prostitute in a whorehouse.
Belle De Jour is innocent and naive about the ways of life and of the goings on in a whorehouse. She is roughly introduced to 'the candy man', Mr. Adolph, who runs a candy-shop and 'adores his whores'. This is reminiscent of her sexual abuse as a child, and she is not attracted to this rude man. Madame Anaïs reprimands Severine when she tries to escape, saying, "You need a firm hand". The man takes Severine roughly, and she cannot refuse but must submit to his demands. In the end she gives in to her own strange desires.
Is this what she really wants? Even Severine doesn't really know if she is doing the right thing. She has still kept this secret from her husband.
After an absence at the whorehouse, Severine returns to an admonishing Madame Anaïs. But in returning, it seems as if Severine has made up her mind and has decided to stay.
Severine is asked to be a dominatrix for a strange man, a Doctor of Gynecology, who wants to be commanded and have his body and face "stamped on". She doesn't know what to do and another woman is called in to do the job. But Madame Anaïs shows her a secret peep-hole, telling her to watch and learn. Severine observes silently, shocked and disgusted by the man's behavior. "How can anyone stoop so low?" she asks.
Severine is introduced to many men and gradually learns how to be a true Belle De Jour. The pinnacle of acceptance comes when a strange Asian man introduces odd sexual practices. He shows Severine what at first seem to be Ben-Wa balls and a mysterious buzzing insect inside a box. While the other prostitutes refuse to comply with his requests, Severine is strangely attracted to him. Though the man is clearly meant to be Japanese, presenting a "Geisha Club" card, he only speaks nonsense--an incoherent language. Whether this was intentional or not, it presents something more troubling than a racial caricature. There is no way to understand what he is saying, or what he will do to Severine, and his presence is the most sinister because the other women fear him. Later when the maid, (Madame Anaïs' sister, Pallas) mentions how horrible the man was, Severine languidly replies, "What do you know, Pallas?" Severine has finally conquered her fear of men.
The other shocking man she meets is a Duke who has a thing for death. They meet at a cafe where the coachmen bring the Duke. She agrees to go to his house, the same house that is in the beginning of the movie of Severine's fantasy. At the manor house, Severine then changes into a woman wearing a death shroud. She is laying in a coffin for the Duke, while the sounds of cats meowing fill the air. The Duke observes her, "pale, deathly-still body", before carrying out his fantasy to the incredulous view of Severine. When the act is over, Severine is forced out of the manor into the rain with very little dignity spared for her.
The only thing Severine fears is her husband finding out. She has still not consummated her marriage with him, telling him only that when she is ready, she will allow him to be close with her. It is this strange distance she keeps with him, while sleeping with other men, that makes it seem as if she doesn't love him. Perhaps she is now afraid he will find out what she has done, through the evidence of her body. Or could it be she fears a true intimacy with her husband, the only one she truly loves?
More images of perversion follow in Severine's mind. Her husband, Pierre and his friend Henri, are out in the woods, casually shoveling mud (or possibly cow dung) into a pail. "Let's go say hello to Severine," they say. She is tied up to a post and Henri flings the mud at her, yelling joyfully, "Hello, whore! Hello, you tramp!". Pierre watches from aside.
Through her fantasies Severine escapes, daydreaming of committing such infidelities with Henri, in the presence of her husband, while Pierre is blissfully unaware of what is going on. It's as if she is goading Pierre, wanting him to find out what is happening, so he can punish her and she can have release.
Finally Severine is introduced to a young gangster, Marcel, who falls under her spell and becomes madly in love with her. She fears this man and so desires him because she fears him. He is unpredictable and dangerous. But Severine still loves her husband and though she is restless when they go on vacation because of Marcel, she would not hurt her husband with the truth of her affair.
But Severine is undone one day, when an old friend of Madame Anaïs comes to visit. It is her husband's friend, Henri, and he knows now what she has been up to. Though he promises not to tell Pierre of her double life, he makes it clear of his disdain for her "day-job" and feels sorry for her husband. "His pure and chaste wife, is anything but...". He mocks her, not admitting that he was the one to give her the address of the whorehouse in the first place. She accuses him but he makes an excuse, "I didn't think you'd actually follow through", he seems to say. Henri is no longer interested in her but offers to bring his friends over instead to see her in the brothel. It is a humiliating experience for Severine, who confesses that she can't help herself--she must submit to this other life of hers.
She is torn. She is left with no choice but to leave. Upon her decision, Madame Anaïs thinks Marcel is the cause for Severine's departure. Severine says goodbye, tries to seduce Madame Anaïs with a kiss, but Madame Anaïs rebuffs her. Belle De Jour, favorite of the whorehouse, the elegant house-wife, leaves and returns to her husband.
At home it is not her husband but the young gangster, Marcel, who is waiting for her. She tells him to go but is caught between this young man and the love for her husband. She finally gives in to the ruffian's demands, if only to send him away. He tells her that her husband is the only obstacle between them. Marcel leaves Severine alone. Later, gunshots are heard outside and when she goes to the balcony, she finds her husband on the ground. He has been shot by Marcel.
Marcel, who so desperately desired Severine, is hunted down, shot, and killed by the police. Thus ends one troubling segment in Severine's life. Though another awaits her when her husband's friend, Henri Husson, visits.
Severine's husband, Pierre, is now trapped in a wheel-chair and must be fed, bathed and changed by her. Henri shows up to confess all to Pierre. Saying that Pierre must feel so much "guilt at being a burden to his chaste wife", taunting Severine with what has happened.
The damage is done. Pierre, blind and paralyzed, hears the terrible truth about his wife. When Severine faces her husband, it looks as though he is crying. She sits on the sofa and daydreams. Her husband gets out of his wheelchair, no longer paralyzed, asks what she is thinking and they both embrace before Severine goes out to the balcony where the coachmen wait with the carriage--the sound of sleigh bells, cats meowing and cow bells, fill the air.
Belle De Jour has decided to live her life in fantasy. Such is the life of a woman, formerly an abused child, who seeks guidance but cannot put to voice her own desires. It is not known whether she will continue her dalliances with men in the future but she will certainly continue to fantasize and daydream forever more--since reality turned out to be so harsh and unfulfilling. Severine is now stuck with an invalid for a husband, since he cannot possibly fulfill her desires now, nor can he sign for divorce. Perhaps now she can be close with him the only way she knows how--in her dreams.
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"Belle De Jour" A film by Luis Buñuel. Based on the Novel by Joseph Kessel. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli and Geneviève Page. With, Pierre Clementi, Francisco Rabal, Francoise Fabian, Macha Meril, Maria Latour Muni, Georges Marchal and Francis Blanche.
See also: Martin Scorsese, Robert & Raymond Hakim, Editions Gallimard French Academy, Jean-Claude Carriere, Julie Jones.
