Belle de Jour

A wonderful parable of love, relationships and the place in both for fantasy and imagination. Certainly much more enjoyable to watch, not to mention better acted and directed, than recent delvings into that subject matter, like Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac (though that wasn't the latter's point). I…

A blunt surprise insofar as the movies stark depictions of both a young woman's eccentric erotic fantasies alongside a rather harsh alternative lifestyle. In the middle there is a very conventional and ordinary real life tale of a married couple where the husband has no idea what's going on within h…

The slightly kinky opening scenes of this film go some way to explaining just why "Severine" (Catherine Deneuve) isn't so satisfied with her handsome yet sexually uninspiring husband "Pierre" (Jean Sorel). Indeed, quickly we gather that they are yet to consummate their nuptials at all! Increasingly …