Rating  - Boring
It seemed that this movie was made to answer a lingering question from a previous movie but, it did not answer the question. I will avoid this director in the future, he has stung me once. However, if you are learning French it is not too difficult to understand. The characters speak clearly and they do not use a lot of much slang so it is good for practicing your French.
Rating  - A Well-Drawn Sequel to Buñuel's Belle de Jour.
Paying homage to Luís Buñuel's 1967 classic Belle de Jour, Belle Toujours is a 2006 Portuguese film directed by prolific filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira, who was in his 90s when he made this sequel. The poignant, slow-paced film picks up thirty-eight years after where Buñuel's psychosexual masterpiece left off, with Michel Piccoli reprising his unforgettable role as an older Henri Husson, who remains the equally sadistic and manipulative libertine who lusted after and tormented Catherine Deneuve's Séverine in the original film. Bulle Ogier plays Séverine in Belle Toujours. She attempts to avoid Henri throughout much of the film, as he relentlessly stalks her with the intention of revealing a secret from their past, a secret involving what he told her mute and paralized husband. Belle Toujours will appeal to fans of both Luís Buñuel and Manoel de Oliveira. This special-edition DVD includes interviews with Manoel de Oliveira, Michael Piccoli, Bulle Ogier, and Ricardo Trêpa; the theatrical trailer; and a photo gallery.
G. Merritt
Rating  - I have yet to see a bad Manoel de Oliveira film....
This is yet one more excellent film in the oeuvre of Manoel de Oliveira. It's another endlessly fascinating, intellectual, thoughtful, and dark film. It's not technically a sequel to Luis Bunuel's Belle de Jour, more like a tribute and a coda to the original story. You don't have to see Belle de Jour to understand this film, but it helps. De Oliveira doesn't try to outdo Bunuel here (except when a chicken makes a cameo), but instead has his own unique, fascinating take of the main characters from Belle de Jour (if you want to see a Manoel de Oliveira film where he gives Bunuel a run for his money, check out Magic Mirror, the film he made before this one). Michel Piccoli once again meets Bulle Ogier (she replaced Catherine Deneuve here), and asks her to dinner. He expects to "rekindle" their relationship, but he's in for quite a surprise.
This is a deceptively simple film. It's beautifully shot, acted, written, and directed. Piccoli is wonderful and charming, and Ogier gives her character an edge here that, dare I say, Deneuve might have missed. Richardo Trepa, a De Oliveira regular, plays a bartender here and he is wonderful, turning in one of his best performances in Manoel's work. The script is quite literate, and the first part of the concluding dinner scene is fascinating, as it is done without any dialogue. All you hear is Ogier and Piccoli eating. When their conversation starts, it's intense, real, sad, bitter, and very poetic. The whole film works wonderfully.
The only complaint I have is that the film is too short. It runs just over an hour (70 minutes), and I wished it was longer. New Yorker Video gave this film a fine transfer, and has some great interviews with de Oliveira, Piccoli, Ogier, and Trepa. The de Oliveira interview was recorded two days after the opening of his retrospective at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn. I met Manoel on the opening day of the retrospective(they were screening his latest film, Christopher Columbus, The Enigma, a good film, but like Belle Toujours, too short), and it is one of the greatest experiences of my life meeting him. This is one of his best films.
Go to the Product Information page
page 1 of 1
Customer Reviews for New Yorker Video,717119104344,0717119104344,B0015TJGH8, |
