Belle de jour

Catherine Deneuve’s porcelain perfection hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her after­noon hours working in a bordello. This surreal and erotic late-sixties daydream from provocateur for the ages Luis Buñuel is an examination of desire and fetishistic pleasure (its characters’ and its viewers’), as well as a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and class divisions. Fantasy and reality commingle in this burst of cinematic transgression, which was one of Buñuel’s biggest hits.

Starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, Geneviéve Page, Pierre Clémenti, Françoise Fabian, Macha Meril, Muni, Maria Latour, Claude Cerval