FredCDobbs Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I didn't care much for it, but I couldn't read the subtitles since I was lying down and they were all sideways. So, I never quite figured out the plot. However, I will say that I prefer Jean Harlow pre-codes to stuff like this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hibi Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I didn't care much for it, but I couldn't read the subtitles since I was lying down and they were all sideways. So, I never quite figured out the plot. However, I will say that I prefer Jean Harlow pre-codes to stuff like this. LOL. I thought it was pretty tame by today's standards. (didnt see it this go round)........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SansFin Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I feel that the plot is not important. It is surrealism. It is a thing to enjoy while not analyzing deeply. I do enjoy it when I am in the mood for surreal movies. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr6666 Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 I feel that the plot is not important. It is surrealism. It is a thing to enjoy while not analyzing deeply. I do enjoy it when I am in the mood for surreal movies. yup, and the ending....? (love it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesJazGuitar Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 yup, and the ending....? (love it) Sanfin has it right. I enjoyed the movie but I can see why someone looking for a more traditional movie\plot might not enjoy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joefilmone Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 You can never expect anyting conventional when one is watching Bunuel....the film might seem tame now but that scene with the asian man and the mysterious box is still intriguing.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MovieMadness Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 You may have to be asleep to like it then, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewhite2000 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Possible spoiler alerts! (Although the movie seems so open for interpretation, I don't think I'm really spoiling anything) William Friedkin insisted to Robert Osborne that the secret to the whole meaning of the movie can be discerned by paying careful attention to the noises you hear on the soundtrack in the film's final seconds. So, I tried to pay careful attention. I noticed the clock chimed five during the time when the lascivious friend went in alone to talk to the husband, supposedly to reveal to him everything about her secret life. Five was always the time that she insisted on being out of the brothel by. So, maybe it meant something that it was five o'clock, but I don't know what. Then, there were the sounds of the carriage which elsewhere in the movie always seemed to announce the arrival of a fantasy sequence. So, maybe the whole movie up to this point had been fantasy? Or maybe just the opposite: the reality of her situation was too awful to handle, so she's retreated into a fantasy where her husband can see and walk and talk again. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I don't know that I UNDERSTOOD it, but I enjoyed it. Sometimes, a movie can be enjoyed for its imagery and style without having clear meaning, I think. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SansFin Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 that scene with the asian man and the mysterious box is still intriguing.... My favorite scene is the one with the otter, the nun and the skylight. It is sad to say that it was cut from many prints because the dial on the safe was considered overly-suggestive.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavenderblue19 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Did anyone else think of BREATHLESS when that thug is running down the street and is shot down? In the quick scene of Severine being kissed by a man when she's a young girl, and her refusal to eat the communion biscuit, was that about being sexually abused as a child and her feeling guilt? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewhite2000 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Yes to both questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lavenderblue19 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Thanks Sewhite Liked your post and I agree, my take on the film also. Loved it when she was given the lilies to hold. They only open during the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElCid Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 No. What little I watched before getting bored. Difficult to follow a plot (if there was one) while trying to read subtitles. You can either read what they are saying or watch what they are doing - can't do both. If it was really any good, it would have been dubed into or done in English to start with. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewhite2000 Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 (edited) Sure seems like you're closing yourself off to (literally) a whole world of movies with that attitude. This particular film wasn't even all that dialogue heavy, and sometimes I didn't even bother to read everything if I was really caught up in a specific scene. Didn't hamper my enjoyment. Having to divide your focus is distracting, I agree, but give me subtitles over dubbing one thousand times out of one thousand. You get to hear the actors speaking in their actual voices, and even if you don't understand meaning, you can understand intonation and emotion in any language. Every time I watch an overdubbed film, I feel as if I'm listening to people reading lines they themselves have never heard before (one exception: Miazaki's animated films have excellent English overdubs). [...] Edited July 25, 2014 by TCMModerator1 Removed inappropriate comments 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palmerin Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Exactly what was Bun~uel's beef with the Church? Practically every movie he made emphasized his fixation with anticlericalism, just as Oliver Stoned-Out-Of-His-Gourd is fixated with Kennedy and the Vietnam War! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElCid Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 (edited) Sure seems like you're closing yourself off to (literally) a whole world of movies with that attitude. This particular film wasn't even all that dialogue heavy, and sometimes I didn't even bother to read everything if I was really caught up in a specific scene. Didn't hamper my enjoyment. Having to divide your focus is distracting, I agree, but give me subtitles over dubbing one thousand times out of one thousand. You get to hear the actors speaking in their actual voices, and even if you don't understand meaning, you can understand intonation and emotion in any language. Every time I watch an overdubbed film, I feel as if I'm listening to people reading lines they themselves have never heard before (one exception: Miazaki's animated films have excellent English overdubs). [...] The OP posted a question and I responded. If you don't like my response, ignore it. If you "find it difficult", then don't respond. Forum should be for expressing your opinion or thoughts, not criticizing other posters for expressing theirs. Edited July 25, 2014 by TCMModerator1 Edited to remove deleted comments from quote 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 No. What little I watched before getting bored. Difficult to follow a plot (if there was one) while trying to read subtitles. You can either read what they are saying or watch what they are doing - can't do both. If it was really any good, it would have been dubed into or done in English to start with. Bunuel seems to be a good technician.... his photography is good, his sound is good, his color is good, his actors are good, but his stories don't usually mean anything that everyone can agree on as making any kind of sense. The "hottest" part of this film presentation was listening to William Friedkin and Robert Osborne talk about it ahead of time. But the dull stuff started as soon as the film began. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dargo Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Bunuel seems to be a good technician.... his photography is good, his sound is good, his color is good, his actors are good, but his stories don't usually mean anything that everyone can agree on as making any kind of sense. The "hottest" part of this film presentation was listening to William Friedkin and Robert Osborne talk about it ahead of time. But the dull stuff started as soon as the film began. Not for ME, anyway! Ya see, BESIDES the idea that Bunuel masterfully told the story in such a manner that it had you(well evidently not "you", but it sure did ME) guessing what was "real" and what wasn't and ALL the way to the end, but not ONLY could I not keep my eyes off of Deneuve, but ALSO off her hot as hell "madam" Genevieve Page! (...and who, btw, I just posted a picture of in the "Lookalikes" thread comparing her to Alida Valli) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted July 25, 2014 Author Share Posted July 25, 2014 Sure seems like you're closing yourself off to (literally) a whole world of movies with that attitude. This particular film wasn't even all that dialogue heavy, and sometimes I didn't even bother to read everything if I was really caught up in a specific scene. Didn't hamper my enjoyment. Yeah, maybe, but there are a whole lot of movies that I don't want to see. The object of the "game" of being a film buff includes seeing the movies you want to see, and avoiding the movies you don't want to waste time seeing. This film is one long tease.... like spending $50 bucks for a lot of drinks at a strip bar, yet the dancing girls never take off all their clothes, and even if they do, maybe you don't have any sweetie to go home too. What's much better than a film like this is going home to a pretty good looking wife and shouting, "Honey, I'm home", and then honey comes to greet you in a see-through night gown. I.E. no movie is needed at all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaslovesTCM Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 I could not wrap my head around the scene where she kisses the guy with the lousy attitude and rotting teeth YUCK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macocael Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 This movie tends to give American audiences trouble, as witness the perplexity not only of the commenters here but also Robert Osborne and Drew Barrymore who hosted it on The Essentials and were asking the same questions that are being asked here. The problem is that we are used to watching films that conform to the principles of realism, yet Buñuel is a surrealist. It is irrelevant to ask where the dream ends and reality begins in his films, because the films as a whole are ruled by the logic of dreams. We have entered a realm where symbolic logic dictates the meaning. It might help to think of them as fables or fairy tales of a sort -- we expect those genres to be ruled by a magical or fantastic representation of life. But the themes of Belle du Jour are clear enough: virtue vs. sin, propriety vs sensuality, repression vs. liberation of the Id. Just consider the conclusion, and it all makes sense. A French audience, steeped as they are in the Catholic tradition, would grasp immediately the irony of that final scene. Who made the lame walk and the blind see? Christ, of course. He is the very emblem of virtue, and Christianity as an institution promotes the values of self abnegation, denial of the flesh,etc. Buñuel saw this as a delusion and a form of bourgeois hypocrisy, and it oftens forms a satirical target in his films. In Belle de Jour, the husband "sees" and "walks" when he learns that his wife is the antithesis of virtue, so this is a very ironic form of salvation. (Remember, Husson informs him of his wife's story in order to lift the shame he feels for being dependent on such a virtuous woman.) In order for the husband to really see and live (walk), he must understand the truth about the phony virtue that he and his wife have been living, tear down the facade of bourgeois propriety, and recognize their desires. Virtue is precisely what has been making a mess of their life together: the wife is frigid because her husband is a saint (the thuggish boyfriend is his antithesis, right down to his bad teeth), and the husband lives blindly because of his false idea of his wife. There is a neat Sophoclean element here too, since, like Oedipus, the husband "sees" the truth only after he has lost his eyesight. This may not make you like the film any better, but it might help you to understand it better. Of course, it may seem a bit tame, since these days we are immersed in films that revel in the sordid sexual lives of the characters -- particularly the New French Extremism -- but for the time, the theme was bold, and the surreal elements as well as the indictment of middle class mores have stood the test of time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewhite2000 Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Huh. Apparently I made inappropriate comments that were deleted. Since it was two months ago, even I don't remember what I wrote! Wasn't trying to insult you, Cid. Just trying to suggest broadening your horizons might be enjoyable, but I'm totally of the "to each his own" philosophy, so sorry if I sounded like a nag. If anyone remembers what I said that got deleted, PM me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midwestan Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 Overall, I liked it. The opening scene where the coachmen were w h i p p i n g her exposed back was kinky, but effective...I had to keep watching to see what would happen next! Subtitled movies can be a bit distracting for me. It can be hard to read and catch the facial emotions and surrounding scenery all at once, but I give it the old college try, as they say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistervegan Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 agreed. that scene caught me sorta off guard. however, after reading about the perversion regarding bunuel, i must be getting old. You can never expect anyting conventional when one is watching Bunuel....the film might seem tame now but that scene with the asian man and the mysterious box is still intriguing.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistervegan Posted September 14, 2014 Share Posted September 14, 2014 anatomically speaking, she was too skinny for my tastes. but, yes, performance-wise, she was perfect. Catherine Deneuve's performance is the best thing about it. However, she is used to even better effect, in The Last Metro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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