Belle de jour

Last night, LL and I watched Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour, the last of his films available from Netflix that we hadn't yet seen. Frankly, of all his films I've seen, this one was the least capable of holding my attention. I found myself dozing off. That's not to say it's a bad film, but I didn't exactly find it riveting. I much prefer his more free-wheeling surrealist films, and simply blurring fantasy and reality didn't quite cut it. Despite its reputation as something of an erotic shocker when it was released in 1967, it's rather tame by today's standards. It's certainly tame by my standards. It probably doesn't help that Catherine Deneuve isn't my type. I don't find her physically attractive and she has a rather frigid aura to my mind. I'm sure several million men disagree with me on these counts. To quote that great philosopher of the early 20^th century, Popeye, "I yam what I yam."

Ranking Buñuel's films that I have so far seen in my own order of preference, then:

1. Le Fantôme de la liberté
   
2. Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie
   
3. Un chien andalou
   
4. Cet obscur objet du désir
   
5. Le Journal d'une femme de chambre
   
6. L' Âge d'or
   
7. Viridiana
8. Belle de Jour
   

I'd very much like to find a source for more of Buñuel's work. Netflix has only a quarter of the 32 films he directed. While I haven't absolutely loved everything I've seen, neither have I loathed any of it. I'm quite sure I'm missing a lot of good stuff!

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