Through The Keyhole
Brief notes on watching "Belle de Jour" (1967)
Belle de Jour. Dir. Luis Buñuel, 1967. 101 mins.
I watched Belle de Jour (1967) last night, a shiny Blu-ray transfer from Studio Canal. It’s everything you could possibly want in a movie. I hadn’t seen it since the my first time viewing, at the Hawthorns Hotel, Bristol, in 1978. We had a two-night stay booked and I had my own room. There was a black and white TV which meant my evening viewing would be unsupervised. Which was a definite plus, as my childhood reading, listening, and movie-watching were heavily supervised (suppressed). That probably explains everything I’ve done in later life. Which I kind of resent. But hey, It’s Too Late To Stop Now.
You can make nuanced decisions within this hand-me-down framework, I guess. But probably not. The BBC must have been having some kind of horny French season as the next night’s viewing was Barbarella (1968), which I absolutely detested. I’m still dubious about camp. And queens, generally. Never seen the The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) or the Phantom of the Paradise (1974). You have these lacunae. I’ll live. I’ll likely watch Barbarella again though, because well, y’know, Anita Pallenberg.