I told myself that I was going to wait to see Belle de Jour until the Clémenti retrospective, but June feels really far away and I wanted to rent it pretty badly. I was slightly disappointed, but not too much.
Catherine Deneuve has never been one of my favorites. She was beautiful in her youth and is aging well, yes, but that doesn't mean I find her particularly interesting. I respect the humanitarian and feminist work she's done, but sometimes you love actors and actresses and sometimes you don't. I don't have anything against her, but I'm not fascinated by her either (okay, I love her in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, but that's an exception). Here's a gratuitous Muppets shot:
All useless rambling aside, I found her pretty good in this. Belle de Jour is very tame by today's standards, but in 1967 the idea of a bored housewife with explicit masochistic sexual fantasies must've been groundbreaking. She's maybe 23/24 in this, so accepting the role was risky and I can respect her for that. There is this risk of the timid woman not happy with her sweet husband because he's not abusing her, but I think it's a stretch here. It definitely falls into the "bad boy" attraction crap, but Séverine knows when to draw the line with Marcel's obsessive behavior and I don't know many other movies of this era that deal with a woman's sexuality both so explicitly and with respect. You never get the idea that Buñuel is judging his protagonist for her preferences. Also Deneuve's Yves Saint-Laurent wardrobe is gorgeous.
Pierre Clémenti, on the other hand, is one of my all-time favorites. His role as Marcel gets a lot less screen time (maybe 30 minutes) than I'd thought, but he laps it up. You're drawn to Deneuve throughout the film, but whenever she's onscreen with Clémenti, he completely steals the scene from her. I think this is his best known performance and the last mainstream one for quite some time. His character is disgusting (and those TEETH), but he's really excellent and hammy in this. And what a sassy dresser! Oh and Michel Piccoli also is good as always.
The bored housewife theme is definitely nothing new, but this approach to it must've been back in the day. Buñuel's "surrealism" in this isn't nearly as interesting today as it was then. I've heard of people describing Belle de Jour as blurring the line between fiction and reality, but I found Séverine's fantasies to be quite distinctive from her everyday life. Also, judging from the US trailers (both the 1960s one and the re-release one) it was promoted as softcore porn here in the States, which is not only an insult to the movie, but complete bullshit. I didn't find Belle de Jour to be phenomenal, but it was enjoyable, with good performances, and it was far more than a skin flick.
In other news, I'm an hour into Jeanne Dielman and it is AMAZING. I'll be done with it this weekend and will write about it sometime next week, I'd imagine.
Thanks to the calendar handout in French class this morning, I now know that Anthology Film Archives is having a Pierre Clémenti retrospective from June 11th to the 17th. A good opportunity to learn more about his work as well as a chance to catch Belle de Jour on the big screen. Unfortunately it won't make up for my missing the US premiere of Les Idoles a few years back.
Ideally, I would've written about Irréversible immediately after watching it, when I was still completely rattled and thus in the perfect state of mind to do so.
I vaguely remember when it was released in New York, but more than anything I now think of it as a kind of "dare" movie, who can stomach it and who can't. Anyone who's heard of the film knows about the 9 minute rape scene, and most of them also know of the graphic skull bashing via fire extinguisher. Honestly, when this is where a film's notoriety stems from, it's not surprising if it develops such a reputation.
I definitely felt a similiar anxiety before watching it. Kind of nervous about the rape scene, but feeling like I was prepared, and if anything I'd be able to have a weird sense of pride after having sat through it. Plus, I'd liked Seul Contre Tous enough that I hoped the movie would offer more than shock value. I'd read up on Irreversible years ago, having never intended to watch it, so I felt like I knew what was coming.
I guess with a build-up like that it's not even worth mentioning how wrong I was. I was aware of (and intrigued by) the fact that Noé incorporated low-frequency sounds into the soundtrack for the first 20-30 minutes, barely audible, but capable of causing serious discomfort in people. Combined with the dizzying camerawork of the film's opening, I was caught off-guard by how nauseous I felt, very early on.
While I can defend the rape scene to no end, the claims of homophobia are more difficult to combat. The first major event of the film takes place in a gay S&M club named Rectum, and even though I still felt nauseous from the cinematography and the music, I definitely remember thinking "okay, this is a bit much" when it came to the seemingly endless shots of dudes in leather, sucking each other off, beating, masturbating, etc. There's a way to shoot this neutrally, but this wasn't it. There was definitely a sense of perversion and filth associated with it. Regardless of the fact that Noé threw in a cameo of himself as one of the guys jerking off, it still felt homophobic. The fact that Monica Bellucci's rapist is supposed to be gay definitely doesn't help.
I can barely comment on the fire extinguisher scene, because I knew when it was coming, and knowing how squeamish I am, I covered my eyes. What it didn't protect me from were the sound effects. The repeated clanking of the metal against this guy's head, the squishing mixed with the guy's progressively weakening cries made the scene feel like it was much longer than I'd expected. People who've actually watched it have spoken of its bizarre realism, despite being CGI. I'm not surprised.
The rape is a different story. By the time Bellucci started down the long red underground corridor and I knew what was coming, I was already in a completely different state of mind than I'd anticipated. Nauseous, almost exhausted, I was kind of terrified for it. A big critique of this single, 9 minute shot, is the question of whether or not it was gratuitous, some people even going so far as to say Noé was a sick bastard, appealing to the few who'd watch it and take some kind of pleasure in it, even questioning whether or not it promoted rape. This, I can't believe in any way, shape or form. The gut reaction, and the only appropriate response to the way this scene is done, is complete disgust. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried a little bit and saying I reacted this way strictly because I'm female is complete bullshit. My brain went through the rounds. "This is degrading/why is this so long/why am I watching this/why am I not covering my eyes now/what's wrong with me/this is awful, but necessary." Despite its length, absolutely nothing about it is glamorized. One mainstream review, though it praised the film, asked if 9 minutes was necessary. I might've agreed before seeing it, but afterwards, I can't. The bottom line, for me, is that this is the most effective depiction of rape in a fictional film that I've ever seen. It's repulsive because it needs to be. Any other treatment of it would be an insult to the depravity of rape itself.
One small detail that made me even more nauseated was the shadow of a bystander who appears in the background, sees what's happening, and promptly leaves without doing anything.
The rest of the film follows the events preceding the violence. It's a chance to recover after a truly brutal 30-40 minutes. Included is a kind of expected, lengthy "French" scene where the three protagonists are on the metro discussing sex and another where Cassel and Bellucci romp around naked. I just sounded a bit negative there, but while I was a little bored by the metro scene, the latter is very warm, if not sweet, and above all crucial in reinforcing how cruel the violence that precedes it is, explaining Cassel's reactions without defending them. I found the acting to be quite strong on all fronts.
I won't disclose the "surprise". I knew about it going into the film, and I wish I hadn't. Knowing about the violence still didn't prepare me for how painfully unpleasant this film would be, but knowing this "surprise" definitely weakened the effect of the ending.
True to form, the noise over the white screen at the very end made me squirm all over again. As a noted Daft Punk fangirl with just a bit (read: loads) of shame, I found Bangalter's soundtrack really fitting. It doesn't hold up as an album on its own, however.
Immediately afterwards, I had my cigarette and one of those rare, "what did I just sit through" moments. I was shaken. Without a doubt, Irreversible is the single most unpleasant cinematic experience I've ever had. Having said that, it was an experience entirely, where most films only seek to be. I was sucked in and affected, deeply. So, despite being an extremely cruel film, I can comfortably say that Irréversible was incredible. Just don't expect me to watch it again.
Small note: This is definitely not a film to see in parts. There are scenes online, but I guarantee that this is one that needs to be seen from start to finish to understand or even begin to argue against/for it. Watching it in pieces, I would definitely understand how someone could immediately be critical. If you have the guts to sit through it, and this is one film where I see no right to judge someone who doesn't, sit through all of it.
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