5. Belle de Jour (1967)
Luis Bunuel proves he can do erotica with the best of them. Severine is a beautiful young housewife who is sexually frigid towards her husband Dr Pierre. But she has a fertile sexual imagination with fantasies revolving around BDSM. At a ski resort, the couple run into some friends, one of which Husson takes a fancy to Severine and later sends her flowers as well as the address of a high class brothel that a mutual friend works at. Severine goes to the brothel and starts work under the tutelage of Madame Anais. She is named 'Belle de Jour' and she begins work every afternoon. Husson is still pestering her for sex but she refuses his advances. Ironically, Severine's sex life with her husband improves. Severine becomes involved with a young thug called Marcel who gives her thrills and excitement. When Marcel becomes aggressive, Severine leaves the brothel. Marcel gets one of his gangster friends to track her down and and they shoot Severine's husband who is left paralysed. Husson tells Pierre all about his wife's secret life and Severine does not try to stop him. Severine dreams her husband is healthy again and they are happy. Worth the price of admission alone to see the always beautiful Catherine Deneuve look gorgeous in various states of undress. Extremely erotic without being explicit, the lines between memory, reality and fantasy are blurred in Bunuel's film. The mystery of Severine's sexuality is a compelling enigma for the viewer to solve amidst a web of kinkiness, frigidity and surrender. There is, as with all Luis Bunuel movies, a heavy dose of symbolism - like the carriage in Belle de Jour. I will leave it to you, the viewer to figure it all out.