Belle Toujours (2006)

I love this movie so much

Touches You

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Our film festival in Vancouver keeps bringing his films (which I have sat through a few and never been impressed), so he must be a critic's darling, but this is terribly dull.I agree completely with Moustache review. Someone else suggested Elegant, but Decadent might be closer to the mark. What does an old man make a film about? An old man, of course! Not that an old man can't be interesting of course, but he seems to have nothing to say that I can decipher. There's certainly no fire in the belly, candles burning out would be closer! The female lead is completely successful, but I can certainly see why Catherine Deneuve would have given this a pass! Edward Dardis Van BC

If one were looking for a one-word description of this film Elegant would serve as well as any for elegance informs every frame from the concert hall of the opening sequence to the hotel where Severine is domiciled to the the bar where Husson learns this to the boutique outside which they arrange a rendez-vous to the private dining room where the rendez-vous takes place. In Germany they traditionally wrapped gifts in brown paper reasoning that it was the gift itself that mattered rather than the gift-wrap. Here we are offered exquisite layers of gift-wrap with the promise of a Faberge egg at the centre; alas, when the last layer has been lovingly unfurled we find merely a hollow enamel egg of the type once used to induce hens to lay.Octo (now nona) genarian Olveira thinks nothing of squandering eight minutes on a redundant opening sequence of several subsequent 30 second shots of Paris by day and night, eloquent punctuation for what amounts to a stylistic shaggy dog story. I enjoyed it but once is enough.

To be honest, despite Portuguese director Oliveira's considerable reputation (I was privileged to see the still-sprightly centenarian at the 2004 Venice Film Festival: by the way, this is the first among nine of his efforts I'll be watching to commemorate this rare upcoming occasion), I was skeptical about this sequel to one of Spanish surrealist master Luis Bunuel's greatest works – BELLE DE JOUR (1967); once I had accepted that premise, however, I was still disappointed that the earlier film's protagonist, Catherine Deneuve, had refused to participate which – her understandable reluctance to tamper with her signature role notwithstanding – is even more curious given that she had already worked three times with Oliveira since 1995! Now that I've watched the film for myself – which is remarkably brief, a mere 68 minutes, for this day and age! – I realize that Severine (played now by Bulle Ogier, who had herself been delightful in Bunuel's THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE [1972]) isn't really the main role here, but rather Husson (a returning and still bemused Michel Piccoli, where he seems to have gotten over his perennial feeling of coldness by becoming an alcoholic!); for the record, Piccoli had himself been a regular of Bunuel's (7 films) and, by this time, also of Oliveira's (6 films).Anyway, though the film (unsurprisingly) omits the seamless blurring of dream and reality that made BELLE DE JOUR so fascinating, it works better than a sequel to an undisputed art-house classic 40 years after the fact has any right to – or I would ever have imagined myself (given my oft-declared admiration for Bunuel's oeuvre). That said, we do find in here some definite nods to his past achievements – which clearly emerge to be among the most pleasing elements in the entire film: not only the retrieval of the famously mysterious buzzing box displayed by the heroine's Japanese client in BELLE DE JOUR itself (though one can't quite fathom how Husson was even aware of it in the first place, this was certainly a nice touch); the sardonic waiters during the 'climactic' meal recall their defecting counterparts in THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962; which has, happily, just been officially announced as a 2-Disc Criterion edition for next February!); Severine's fate can ultimately be seen as a reversal of that experienced by VIRIDIANA (1961), going from lasciviousness to piety rather than the other way around; plus, of course and just as accidentally, the sheer fact that the leading lady of the original has now 'morphed' into a different other recalls the duality of the female protagonist of THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977).There is plenty of interesting character detail and amusing situations besides: Severine's constant and nervy attempts at avoiding Husson (she still hasn't forgiven him for spilling the beans on the girl's "cathartic" vice to her now-deceased husband); Piccoli's revealing conversations with a young sympathetic barman – played by Oliveira's own grandson and frequent actor Ricardo Trepa – where, in spite of his obviously advancing age, Husson's erudite distinction still catches the eye of two lonely prostitutes, regulars of the spot; Husson's fascination with the gold-tinted statue of a female warrior on horseback in a Parisian square; not to mention, lovely views of Paris (by day and night) which are employed throughout as transitions between scenes. Eventually, the mismatched couple do get to run into each other – though, somewhat perversely, we're kept in the dark as to their actual initial exchanges; they at least make an appointment for a candle-lit dinner, which is consumed in utter silence…but, then, the two gradually open up. Still, Husson's evasiveness – giving a cryptic reply to Severine's query (which has continued to haunt her ever since) about the exact nature of his confession to her husband all those years ago, in order to determine the meaning behind the tears she had noticed on Pierre's cheeks soon after – so infuriates the woman that she storms out in disgust!

This film by Manoel de Oliveira shows his great knowledge of Buñuel's work but also his admiration of the original Belle de Jour which explains why he would want to return to that story so many years later. My first reaction was that someone who had not seen Belle de Jours would probably not enjoy this. It is in the cinema what Wide Sargasso Sea is in literature, a kind of recreation of a known theme. De Oliveira builds up an amazing tension round what is finally going to happen between the two characters and that makes the meal at the end an example of suspense based not on action so typical of the thriller, but rather on the word, which in Oliveira's films acquires the stature of protagonist. A great movie!