Belle Toujours

2006
Belle Toujours
6.3| 1h10m| en| More Info
Released: 08 September 2006 Released
Producted By: CNC
Country: Portugal
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

38 years after the events in the Luis Buñuel classic Belle du jour, Henri Husson thinks he sees Séverine one night at a concert. He follows her and makes her face her past and then takes a slow revenge on her.

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Janjira Gardner First: slow down. Second: turn of the phone. Third: relax. Now you're ready for a treat. Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours (2006) is a sequel in homage to Belle de Jour (1967), the classic film from Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière. Certainly Belle Toujours is diverting and can stand alone; but, when it follows on the heels of Belle de Jour, so that the two films are taken together, then it finds its full stride. Something magical happens. Michel Piccoli returns as "Mr. Husson" (un drôle de type), as Bulle Ogier replaces - who else could? - the otherwise irreplaceable Catherine Deneuve as "Séverine" (la putain-penitent, forty years on). It works very well. Alone, Oliveira's little gem comes in around 60 minutes. If watched immediately after Buñuel's film, the two taken together require 2 hours and 40 minutes. Enjoy. 8/10 plays it safe.
Roland E. Zwick Running just a little over an hour in length, "Belle Toujours" is Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira's homage to "Belle De Jour," the classic French film from the 1960s, written and directed by Luis Bunuel. The original featured Catherine Deneuve as a beautiful bored housewife with masochistic fantasies who whiles away her afternoons working as a prostitute in a Paris brothel. In the "sequel," Michel Piccoli returns as Henri Husson, the friend who first suggested the brothel to Severine, and who, all these years later, has decided to have a rendezvous with the woman.Though Piccoli reprises his role from the first movie, Severine is played by a different actress (Bulle Oglier), a casting imbalance that plays havoc with the symmetry of the piece. At least for "A Man and a Woman: Twenty Years Later," yet another misguided attempt at recapturing the magic of an earlier film, both Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant showed up for the reunion - though one can certainly sympathize with Deneuve's reluctance to lend her talents to this film, which is smug, self-indulgent, talky and inert, and does nothing to enhance one's memory of the original work (happily, the utter innocuousness of the film also prevents it from HARMING that memory as well).Henri basically spends the first two-thirds of the movie vainly trying to "connect" with Severine (they keep just missing one another, like in one of those Feydeau bedroom farces), and the last third dining with her in an opulent private room where they talk at length about the past and she tries to convince him that she's a "different" woman from the one he knew before - which should be perfectly obvious to anyone who remembers Catherine Deneuve. Then it all culminates in a fizzle-out ending, and we're left dumbfounded and openmouthed, wondering what the purpose for any of it could possibly have been.One thing, however, is certain: "Belle Toujours" is a complete waste of time and film.
MARIO GAUCI 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!
Brakathor I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to view both this film, and the film "Belle Du Jour" upon which it is a sequel, for the very first time in 1 sitting. I was impressed beyond expectation with the first film "Belle Du Jour" directed by Luis Bunuel, only the second film I have seen of his after the very well done "the young one" and am convinced of how great a director he was. That being said, despite the fact that I was very intrigued by the premise of this movie, "Belle Toujours", where 39 years later a sequel was made in which the same characters and one of the original actors meet after so many years to relive their experiences, this movie proved to be everything I feared it would be; a stagey contrived mess filled with pseudo intellectual dribble contained within unrealistic overly dramatized situations, and at best, having no real purpose or unique value of its own.The movie begins with lengthy excerpts in a concert hall which last roughly 8 minutes at which point Henry Husson notices Severine in the audience. You cannot go wrong in opening a film with classical music in this way, though it has been done countless times before. It could have even been very poignant if the two main characters had met outside of the theatre. There are at least three 30 second scenes of shots of Paris with classical music playing, which MIGHT have been poignant if they had first met at the theatre, but which transparently comes across as filler in order for the director to reach an hours length for this waste of film, which only runs 65 minutes long.Instead, Husson did not find Severine outside the theatre, and after wandering the streets aimlessly, he just happened to spot her leaving a bar into a cab, where she just happened to leave the barman with the address of where she was staying. "lucky" as Husson describes it... I would describe it as stagey and poorly conceived, though even here if the director were to spare us from more "luck" the film may have been bearable. Afterwards, Husson goes to the hotel where Severine is staying and just as he enters the elevator she exits the adjacent one, after which he comes down again much too quickly only to see her leave. The hotel clerk then tells him she is leaving the city. Finally, later as he is walking along the street he just happens to bump into her again, where he is talking to her and she walks back and forth, clearly imitating some of the behaviour of Severine Played By Catherine Deneuve in the original film, though to a nauseatingly exaggerated degree. So in the end these 2 re-unite.. after FOUR chance encounters. A Single, might have been poignant. 2 pushy, but 4, utterly ridiculous. This scene which is all shot outside in sky view ends with Husson entering the boutique and emerging 30 seconds later. We later find out that he therein purchased the box with the perverted sex toy held by the oriental client in the first film.... right where he bumps into her for the 4th time; Convenient to a writer and director unable to create a realistic and coherent plot, bust most importantly his character in the first film did not know anything about her encounter with the Asian client.That essentially is the entire plot, not aided at all by the ridiculous fact that in all 3 times the male lead enters the bar where he was able to obtain Severines address, each time there are 2 sex workers there who observe him and interest in his story as if they are fixtures there with no real lives, and nowhere else to be. Almost a third of the movie takes place here, and the worst aspect is that it in no way gives the viewer anticipation for when Husson and Severine finally will speak to each other. Instead it is a reflective and unengaging speculation upon the first movie, which anyone who has seen the first movie could reflect upon as good or better on their own.Finally when the 2 leads meet at a dining room, where they had arranged, after some simple words of exchange, they eat and say nothing to each other for almost 5 minutes. Anyone who finds a single shred of meaning out of this, and doesn't see it as the mindless filler that it is, is the kind of person who would find meaning in a single line drawn on a blank piece of paper. They have a short discussion about the past as the candles on the table 1 by 1 extinguish, a very obvious and somewhat contrived bit of symbolism, until finally they part and the movie is ended by this very empty climax.This entire film is I believe the biggest disgrace upon another movie I have seen. If the plot was at the very least put together in an intelligent and plausible manner, it would at least be acceptable, though still even that disregarded, this film seems like it was put together by a 10 year old with nothing original or new to offer, and literally no plot, based purely on a script contemplating the events in the original movie which could have been written in a couple of hours, and much better done at that. I do not know why Catherine Deneuve did not reprise her role from the first film, but thankfully for her she does not have to associate her name with this absolute disgrace. Michel Picolli should be ashamed of himself for taking part in this pile of film stock. This movie is not even a film of its own. At best it is a meandering reflection upon a true film, and has no purpose to it whatsoever.