[The News Bot]

Reviewed by Mark Botwright, 15th October 2009
Belle de jour is a work that to a certain extent defies both categorisation and criticism. It is hard to critique something that lacks a uniform meaning and is so open to interpretation, thus its value lies more in the process of each viewer evaluating it and coming to their own conclusions. This is something many have continued to do over a number of years and viewings, which surely attests to its potential as an enigmatic puzzle. Yet it also can be read as a straightforward narrative, a simple tale of female emancipation and sexual liberation. This though reduces a multi-layered work to a one note song. There are those who claim it to be a masterpiece and those who deride it as the faux intellectualisation of absurdist titillation. I found it to be somewhere in between, and the fact that opinions on its importance in cinematic terms, as a film in Bunuel’s catalogue, and as a social statement are so varied must surely be seen as a positive.

The disc itself is less bewitching, with image and sound quality that aid the viewing but never truly strive for greatness. The picture lacks the restoration that it clearly deserves, however it is still a clear step up from Optimum’s previous DVD release. The sound is similarly accomplished, with only the overly pedantic likely to find any real flaw. It is not perfect, and doesn’t wow the listener, yet it is about as much as could be asked for; a lossless 2.0 track that is clean and clear.

The extras are either fantastic or re-treading a lot of what is already known, depending on how much you have already looked into the meanings behind the story. They are certainly of a higher calibre than I had expected for this release and as such I wholeheartedly applaud the wealth of information packed within. In short, the film, picture, audio and extras combine to give just about as complete an experience of Bunuel’s piece as we could have hoped for.
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