Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

MisterWhiplash Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour is a classic of 1960s dark comedy, with the touches of surrealism that made the director such a house-hold name (for art-film households anyway) and had a seductive, sometimes cold but never less than interesting performance from Catherine Deneuve as Severine, who spends her days as a hooker in a brothel while her husband doesn't know. You may or may not recall Michel Piccoli was in the film as well, and had a pivotal moment - following being the one who originally gave Severine directions to the brothel - who may or may not have told her husband. Bunuel was smart and clever and right enough to not show us this conversation, only Severine seeing a single tear running down his cheek. We can read into it whatever we wish, which was the sly gift from the mater.The (now late) director Manoel de Oliveira decided in 2006, at the age of 100, to make a sort of "homage" to Bunuel and his collaborator Jean-Claude Carriere by making what is in all actuality a sequel to that film, where Piccoli's character Husson sees Severine at a classical music concert, tries to follow/track her down, and then when he does has dinner with her to talk about things. Will he finally tell her what she said? In truth, does it matter either way, one might ask? Certainly de Oliveira doesn't care.Despite an opening sequence at this concert hall that is simple and magnetic and wonderful to sit through - maybe in large part due to the music itself from Dvorak being so powerful - and a final dinner scene that has a couple of nice visual touches, this is just not that interesting. It doesn't work that Deneuve isn't back as Severine; I'm sure the director would argue this is a further homage to Bunuel (two actresses were used in That Obscure Object of Desire), but it just feels off seeing another actress there, who doesn't have the same looks (Deneuve, at her age today, is still astonishing looking by the way). The film is a scant 70 minutes long - 65 not counting credits - and it still feels padded out with scenes of watching characters eat their dinner, the waiters cleaning up, and lots of walking around.Belle toujours wasn't a bad idea, per-say. Revisiting such memorable characters years later and giving a new perspective could be captivating or enlightening, and as a stand-alone short film it could have worked (imagine, for example, if Husson and Severine meet right after the concert hall and grab a bite and talk, you cut out ALL of the mid-section and don't really miss much at all, other characters here are inconsequential really). At the same time, it was hard for me to also grasp what the "homage" was ultimately. There are two Bunuelian moments of surrealism, one involving a golden horse statue outside in Paris that may have real eyes (this works because there's build-up as Piccoli is staring at it), and another with a chicken that is just weird but weird for weird's sake, if that makes sense.The performances aren't terrible, and some of the camera-work is fine, but the film has not much reason to justify its existence. And the mystery and fun of Belle de Jour was that it was kept in its own, satirical 1960's Parisian world. Maybe there's something to be said about the nature of remembering things and how time changes people, but that feels weak here too. Again, as a short, this might be worthwhile. At 70 minutes, somehow, it feels too long. Not to mention, perhaps a nitpick but something I caught on to as this WAS a 100 year old director, all of the sound is turned up really high on things that don't matter.If you've been waiting to hear Michel Piccoli gulp his whiskey and chew his food, this is the movie for you I guess.

Roland E. Zwick Running just a little over an hour in length, "Belle Toujours" is Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira's homage to "Belle De Jour," the classic French film from the 1960s, written and directed by Luis Bunuel. The original featured Catherine Deneuve as a beautiful bored housewife with masochistic fantasies who whiles away her afternoons working as a prostitute in a Paris brothel. In the "sequel," Michel Piccoli returns as Henri Husson, the friend who first suggested the brothel to Severine, and who, all these years later, has decided to have a rendezvous with the woman.Though Piccoli reprises his role from the first movie, Severine is played by a different actress (Bulle Oglier), a casting imbalance that plays havoc with the symmetry of the piece. At least for "A Man and a Woman: Twenty Years Later," yet another misguided attempt at recapturing the magic of an earlier film, both Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant showed up for the reunion - though one can certainly sympathize with Deneuve's reluctance to lend her talents to this film, which is smug, self-indulgent, talky and inert, and does nothing to enhance one's memory of the original work (happily, the utter innocuousness of the film also prevents it from HARMING that memory as well).Henri basically spends the first two-thirds of the movie vainly trying to "connect" with Severine (they keep just missing one another, like in one of those Feydeau bedroom farces), and the last third dining with her in an opulent private room where they talk at length about the past and she tries to convince him that she's a "different" woman from the one he knew before - which should be perfectly obvious to anyone who remembers Catherine Deneuve. Then it all culminates in a fizzle-out ending, and we're left dumbfounded and openmouthed, wondering what the purpose for any of it could possibly have been.One thing, however, is certain: "Belle Toujours" is a complete waste of time and film.

onthelookout every minute of this film felt like an hour. I liked two things about the film - those were the shots of Paris, including some of the pretentious ones. Every scene was very dull and the actors really could not do their job (the barman was very bad, quickly followed by our protagonist). Admittedly I haven't yet seen 'belle de jour' so perhaps I didn't understand all the references. In any case I believe a film should be a film that can stand alone even if it's a sequel. To all those who haven't already dedicated the 100 minutes to see the original I implore you to beware of giving up the painful 68 minutes needed to see this one...

moimoichan6 It's always nice to fallow the evolution of some characters through the years from films to films. You have the impression to see old friends again after a long separation. But there, the separation was really very long, and years go by, everyone got old and tired. All you got at the end of this meeting is the sad feeling that 38 years after having lost contact, it was quite useless to meet again, for you don't have anything to say to this characters anymore.In 1967, Louis Bunuel filmed a terrible story of a perverse woman beautifully played by Catherine Deneuve. 38 years later, Michel Piccoli, who played in the original movie a friend of Deneuve's husband, assists to a endlessly concert of Dvorak, where he sees the ex-Bunuel character. In old time's sake, he'll want to invite her to diner, but she doesn't really have a nice souvenir of their relationship. And she claims that time changes her a lot : and indeed, Severine, formerly known as Caterine Deneuve, has now become Bulle Augier (but she's quite credible in old-young Deneuve). It's really sad to see that in this false sequel the trouble, the wit and the intelligence of Bunuel are replaced by a boring feeling and an excessive slow motion impression. Beside a tasteful mute diner scene between the two mythical characters, even the most passionate cinephile will have trouble to find anything consistent in this repetitive style exercise. He'll just be surprised in front of this plain interpretation of "Belle de jour", and be amazed by the incoherences. Henry Husson bought for example Severine the strange box a mysterious Asian character brought when he met her years ago : but how can he know this kind of details, when he was merely an external observer of her life ?No wonder why Catherine Deneuve run away in front of this inconsistence and quite lazy movie. But man can wonder why the critics praise this movie when "Belle Toujours" is obviously a minor piece in Oliveira's impressive filmography.