51 reviews
A real heroine - or not.
Buñuel once said, "Bourgeois morality is for me immoral and to be fought. The morality founded on our most unjust social institutions, like religion, patriotism, the family, culture: briefly, what are called 'the pillars of society'."
I mention this, not to alienate people who might find such a statement offensive, but to suggest insight into his point of view. A viewpoint vigorously defended in this anti-bourgeois, rural tale that has a kick like a mule. Buñuel's truths are just as applicable today but, by putting them in 1930s France, he sweetens the bitter pill with a coating of sex, storytelling and the reassuring fiction that 'things have maybe moved on since then.'
Célestine impresses us. Intelligent, attractive and sophisticated - but she nevertheless needs to earn her living in service. She takes the train from Paris to work as a chambermaid at a country estate. In this lap of wealth, she deals with a panoply of dodgy people. A brutish handyman. A frigidly overbearing Madame Monteil. Madame's lecherous husband and her kinky father. Remarkably, none of these are portrayed as stereotypes. Characters are well fleshed out as Buñuel pits one against another. Madame Monteil earns our sympathy as she confides sexual shortcomings to the priest, who is in turn well-meaning if hopelessly out of touch. Doddering old Monsieur Rabour, although at first shockingly abhorrent with his fixation on women's feet, probably has nothing more harmful than a shoe fetish. "Would you mind if I touch your calf?" he asks (but goes no further up her leg). Is Célestine playing a dangerous game? Is she a libertine? Or just one step ahead of her audience?
The first half of Diary of a Chambermaid is delightful saucy comedy. Buñuel's famed surrealism, that make films like Un Chien Andalou or L'Âge d'Or so formidable, is nowhere to be seen. Nor do we have to grapple with the distanciation of Exterminating Angel, his Brechtian masterpiece of just two years earlier. But be warned, gentle reader. The second half is not only grislier, but by the end Buñuel will have pulled the rug from under your feet. It can be a bleak experience.
Quite apart from a clever story, Diary of a Chambermaid offers many delights, both to casual viewers and serious film analysts. Depending on your viewpoint, Moreau's many-sided performance is either a triumph for feminism or stands feminism on its head. It strips bare the bourgeoisie and capitalist, presenting the rising tide of French fascism as xenophobic intolerance - one we can recognise as replicated in many countries or patriotic cults even today. The hypocrisy of the upper classes is one of 'fur coat and no knickers'; whereas the pious protestations of the lower ranks are shown as the facade from which they lust after the coat itself.
Class-struggle is mirrored by sex-as-power. To men, sex becomes a celebration of might, whether physical, social or financial. To women, it is the potential to entrap with allure. She is always present and always unattainable. Through this implied promise of sexual gratification she bends men to her will. And still projects an aura of 'purity'. Our handyman tortures a goose before killing it rather horrible, but in a way does it add to his raw animal charm? And is Buñuel really just telling a story? Or is he manipulating his audience to drive the point home?
This is also Buñuel's only film made in anamorphic widescreen format. Although not showy, the cinematography is powerful. Credits open to the sound of a rushing steam train. We watch, through Célestine's eyes, the countryside flash by. A wide angle lens increases the sense of movement, as if we are propelled by an unstoppable force.
When Joseph tries to kiss Célestine at night by the bonfire, his posture is that of a vampire. A snail crawling across the a dead and violated body in the woods is as vivid and shocking as anything from Buñuel's earlier catalogue of slit eyeballs and dead donkeys. But it is Buñuel's acerbic vision of all that is wrong, in all layers of society, that is so chilling.
At one point, Monsieur Rabour is reading the French author JK Huysmans. Huysman's view of the world was as pessimistic as Buñuel, but it is Buñuel that makes it so all-encompassing. The festering fascist mob who cheer for Chiappe in our film, are honouring the same chief of police who prohibited Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or (after fascists destroyed the cinema where it was being shown). There were few governments that liked Buñuel, and we can see that the feeling was mutual.
The film is more political than it is entertaining, which may alienate some viewers who start off liking it. Even the title seems cynical I don't recall any suggestion of her keeping a journal. Diary of a Chambermaid is a great vehicle for Moreau, who gets to play so many characters in one. A criticism often levelled at mainstream cinema is that women tend to be decoration in male-driven plots. Célestine (or 'Marie' as she is called in another dig at Catholic - or class - depersonalisation) doesn't so much take over the driving seat as suggest a new perspective from which she is in control. Audiences will divide on whether they ultimately like her or not.
Things may have moved on. Domestic service is less harsh in most parts of the world where it survives today. Fascism has been replaced with virulent if not yet such obvious forms of rampant and aggressive nationalism. Sex is not always a game of power. But forces of immorality still pose in white robes and high office. 'Commoners' still aspire to the evils they decry. The purity of a saint is maybe needed to 'enjoy' Diary of a Chambermaid. But Buñuel stood up for his beliefs. Today, most viewers may content themselves with standing up for his cinematic skills.
I mention this, not to alienate people who might find such a statement offensive, but to suggest insight into his point of view. A viewpoint vigorously defended in this anti-bourgeois, rural tale that has a kick like a mule. Buñuel's truths are just as applicable today but, by putting them in 1930s France, he sweetens the bitter pill with a coating of sex, storytelling and the reassuring fiction that 'things have maybe moved on since then.'
Célestine impresses us. Intelligent, attractive and sophisticated - but she nevertheless needs to earn her living in service. She takes the train from Paris to work as a chambermaid at a country estate. In this lap of wealth, she deals with a panoply of dodgy people. A brutish handyman. A frigidly overbearing Madame Monteil. Madame's lecherous husband and her kinky father. Remarkably, none of these are portrayed as stereotypes. Characters are well fleshed out as Buñuel pits one against another. Madame Monteil earns our sympathy as she confides sexual shortcomings to the priest, who is in turn well-meaning if hopelessly out of touch. Doddering old Monsieur Rabour, although at first shockingly abhorrent with his fixation on women's feet, probably has nothing more harmful than a shoe fetish. "Would you mind if I touch your calf?" he asks (but goes no further up her leg). Is Célestine playing a dangerous game? Is she a libertine? Or just one step ahead of her audience?
The first half of Diary of a Chambermaid is delightful saucy comedy. Buñuel's famed surrealism, that make films like Un Chien Andalou or L'Âge d'Or so formidable, is nowhere to be seen. Nor do we have to grapple with the distanciation of Exterminating Angel, his Brechtian masterpiece of just two years earlier. But be warned, gentle reader. The second half is not only grislier, but by the end Buñuel will have pulled the rug from under your feet. It can be a bleak experience.
Quite apart from a clever story, Diary of a Chambermaid offers many delights, both to casual viewers and serious film analysts. Depending on your viewpoint, Moreau's many-sided performance is either a triumph for feminism or stands feminism on its head. It strips bare the bourgeoisie and capitalist, presenting the rising tide of French fascism as xenophobic intolerance - one we can recognise as replicated in many countries or patriotic cults even today. The hypocrisy of the upper classes is one of 'fur coat and no knickers'; whereas the pious protestations of the lower ranks are shown as the facade from which they lust after the coat itself.
Class-struggle is mirrored by sex-as-power. To men, sex becomes a celebration of might, whether physical, social or financial. To women, it is the potential to entrap with allure. She is always present and always unattainable. Through this implied promise of sexual gratification she bends men to her will. And still projects an aura of 'purity'. Our handyman tortures a goose before killing it rather horrible, but in a way does it add to his raw animal charm? And is Buñuel really just telling a story? Or is he manipulating his audience to drive the point home?
This is also Buñuel's only film made in anamorphic widescreen format. Although not showy, the cinematography is powerful. Credits open to the sound of a rushing steam train. We watch, through Célestine's eyes, the countryside flash by. A wide angle lens increases the sense of movement, as if we are propelled by an unstoppable force.
When Joseph tries to kiss Célestine at night by the bonfire, his posture is that of a vampire. A snail crawling across the a dead and violated body in the woods is as vivid and shocking as anything from Buñuel's earlier catalogue of slit eyeballs and dead donkeys. But it is Buñuel's acerbic vision of all that is wrong, in all layers of society, that is so chilling.
At one point, Monsieur Rabour is reading the French author JK Huysmans. Huysman's view of the world was as pessimistic as Buñuel, but it is Buñuel that makes it so all-encompassing. The festering fascist mob who cheer for Chiappe in our film, are honouring the same chief of police who prohibited Buñuel's L'Âge d'Or (after fascists destroyed the cinema where it was being shown). There were few governments that liked Buñuel, and we can see that the feeling was mutual.
The film is more political than it is entertaining, which may alienate some viewers who start off liking it. Even the title seems cynical I don't recall any suggestion of her keeping a journal. Diary of a Chambermaid is a great vehicle for Moreau, who gets to play so many characters in one. A criticism often levelled at mainstream cinema is that women tend to be decoration in male-driven plots. Célestine (or 'Marie' as she is called in another dig at Catholic - or class - depersonalisation) doesn't so much take over the driving seat as suggest a new perspective from which she is in control. Audiences will divide on whether they ultimately like her or not.
Things may have moved on. Domestic service is less harsh in most parts of the world where it survives today. Fascism has been replaced with virulent if not yet such obvious forms of rampant and aggressive nationalism. Sex is not always a game of power. But forces of immorality still pose in white robes and high office. 'Commoners' still aspire to the evils they decry. The purity of a saint is maybe needed to 'enjoy' Diary of a Chambermaid. But Buñuel stood up for his beliefs. Today, most viewers may content themselves with standing up for his cinematic skills.
- Chris_Docker
- May 22, 2008
- Permalink
Uneven
A young woman reports to work as a chambermaid at the residence of an eccentric family in the French countryside. Moreau is fine as the maid, a strong-willed woman who attracts the attention of practically every man in the household and neighborhood. Geret as a servant and Piccoli as the testosterone-laden man of the house also turn in notable performances. In one of his more accessible films, Bunuel creates some beautiful imagery with his wide-screen black and white cinematography. However, the script is uneven, with the plot point concerning the rape and murder of a child mixing uneasily with the political and comedic elements. The conclusion is abrupt and unsatisfying.
Fight of Classes, Hypocrisy, Fascism, Clerical and Murder
In the 30's, the witty, literate and quite sophisticated chambermaid Céléstine (Jeanne Moreau) comes from Paris to work for the dysfunctional Monteil family in the country, more specifically for the fetishist on shoes and maniac for cleaning Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne). His daughter and mistress of the house Madame Monteil (Françoise Lugagne) is a frigid and arrogant woman, and her husband, Monsieur Monteil (Michel Piccoli), is a hunter and also a wolf with their maids. Their fascist and rude worker Joseph (Georges Géret) feels a sexual attraction for Céléstine, but she repels him. Their neighbor, Captain Mauger (Daniel Ivernel), has a problem with the Monteils and dumps his garbage in their yard, but Céléstine talks to him and is motive of gossips. When Monsieur Rabour unexpectedly dies, Céléstine quits her job but while in the train station, she finds that the girl Claire was found raped and murdered by the police. Céléstine returns to her job convinced that Joseph killed the little girl and trying to find evidences against him.
"Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre" is a delightful movie of undefined genre drama, black comedy, adventure? where Luis Buñuel again exposes fight of classes, hypocrisy of both the bourgeois and the working class, a historical moment in France with the fascism growing, the ridiculous role of the clerical and an unsolved murder case. The story is centered in Céléstine, but the motives why a woman with her profile accepts a job in a rural area is never clear. The identity of the rapist and killer of Claire is also not disclosed, there is only a strong insinuation that Joseph killed the girl. The story is very ironic, like for example when Monsieur Monteil is informed that Céléstine and Joseph will marry and requires the sexual favors from Marianne; or the weird fetishism of Monsieur Rabour; or the priest asking for a new roof for the church to Madame Monteil; or the conclusion with Captain Mauger changing his will and serving the mistress and smart Céléstine on their bed. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "O Diário de uma Camareira" ("The Diary of a Chambermaid")
"Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre" is a delightful movie of undefined genre drama, black comedy, adventure? where Luis Buñuel again exposes fight of classes, hypocrisy of both the bourgeois and the working class, a historical moment in France with the fascism growing, the ridiculous role of the clerical and an unsolved murder case. The story is centered in Céléstine, but the motives why a woman with her profile accepts a job in a rural area is never clear. The identity of the rapist and killer of Claire is also not disclosed, there is only a strong insinuation that Joseph killed the girl. The story is very ironic, like for example when Monsieur Monteil is informed that Céléstine and Joseph will marry and requires the sexual favors from Marianne; or the weird fetishism of Monsieur Rabour; or the priest asking for a new roof for the church to Madame Monteil; or the conclusion with Captain Mauger changing his will and serving the mistress and smart Céléstine on their bed. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): "O Diário de uma Camareira" ("The Diary of a Chambermaid")
- claudio_carvalho
- Jan 11, 2008
- Permalink
A dark comedy of brilliance
This is my favorite Buñel film. The story is stunningly presented, an absolute work of art, unbelievably subtle but always concrete. It is like a great symphony: every note is perfect.
Surprisingly (considering the title) Le journal d'une femme de chambre is not about sex, nor is it a journal for that matter. It is about politics, sexual politics of course, but also domestic politics, manor politics, and nation-state politics. The time is the thirties as fascism moves toward its mesmerizing stranglehold on a decadent Europe. The place is France (Normandy, I imagine) where the republicans hold power. In the streets are those who would be brown suits and among them is Joseph (Georges Geret), groundskeeper for a petite bourgeois family of degenerate eccentrics. He is an incipient Nazi, a xenophobic anti-Semitic man who worships brute force, an ignorant man that every French movie-goer knows will be a Nazi-collaborator once France is under the occupation.
The story is seen from the point of view of Celestine, a chambermaid of some sophistication (and an abiding, but understandable duplicity), a Parisian who has come to work for the family in the country. She is played by the incomparable Jeanne Moreau of the plastic face, a woman of many guises, many moods and an ability to depict with a glance any emotion. She is a great star of the French stage and screen who plays the part effortlessly, with finesse and a fine subtlety. The screenplay by Buñel and the brilliant Jean-Claude Carriere (who penned so many outstanding films, Bell de Jour (1967), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Valmont (1989), The Ogre (1996), etc.) is an adaptation of the novel by Octave Mirbeau. There is a Hollywood film of the same name starring Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith and Judith Anderson, directed by Jean Renoir that I haven't seen, released in 1946. I understand the treatment was more comedic and conventional.
Surrealist Luis Buñel's film is perhaps best described as a comédie noire, a genre antecedent to the familiar (and somewhat similar) film noir. In the latter the comedy is usually incidental and there is no attempt at any great philosophic or symbolic significance. Here Buñel not only makes a statement about the nature of the relationship between bourgeois Europe in the thirties and fascism, but even delves into the primeval nature of women and gives us a sharp look at a woman's place in bourgeois society. Celestine is duplicitous because she has to be to survive. She uses men the way the society uses her.
Be sure and pay close attention to the final scene inside and outside the café and consider the implications of what is being shown. What is being suggested? Will Joseph finally get the punishment he so richly deserves? Or did Celestine make the choice she made out of fear? Is the union between Joseph and Celestine symbolic of that between the fascists and Europe?
For those interested in this last theme I highly recommend Vittoria De Sica's brilliant The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971).
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)
Surprisingly (considering the title) Le journal d'une femme de chambre is not about sex, nor is it a journal for that matter. It is about politics, sexual politics of course, but also domestic politics, manor politics, and nation-state politics. The time is the thirties as fascism moves toward its mesmerizing stranglehold on a decadent Europe. The place is France (Normandy, I imagine) where the republicans hold power. In the streets are those who would be brown suits and among them is Joseph (Georges Geret), groundskeeper for a petite bourgeois family of degenerate eccentrics. He is an incipient Nazi, a xenophobic anti-Semitic man who worships brute force, an ignorant man that every French movie-goer knows will be a Nazi-collaborator once France is under the occupation.
The story is seen from the point of view of Celestine, a chambermaid of some sophistication (and an abiding, but understandable duplicity), a Parisian who has come to work for the family in the country. She is played by the incomparable Jeanne Moreau of the plastic face, a woman of many guises, many moods and an ability to depict with a glance any emotion. She is a great star of the French stage and screen who plays the part effortlessly, with finesse and a fine subtlety. The screenplay by Buñel and the brilliant Jean-Claude Carriere (who penned so many outstanding films, Bell de Jour (1967), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Valmont (1989), The Ogre (1996), etc.) is an adaptation of the novel by Octave Mirbeau. There is a Hollywood film of the same name starring Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith and Judith Anderson, directed by Jean Renoir that I haven't seen, released in 1946. I understand the treatment was more comedic and conventional.
Surrealist Luis Buñel's film is perhaps best described as a comédie noire, a genre antecedent to the familiar (and somewhat similar) film noir. In the latter the comedy is usually incidental and there is no attempt at any great philosophic or symbolic significance. Here Buñel not only makes a statement about the nature of the relationship between bourgeois Europe in the thirties and fascism, but even delves into the primeval nature of women and gives us a sharp look at a woman's place in bourgeois society. Celestine is duplicitous because she has to be to survive. She uses men the way the society uses her.
Be sure and pay close attention to the final scene inside and outside the café and consider the implications of what is being shown. What is being suggested? Will Joseph finally get the punishment he so richly deserves? Or did Celestine make the choice she made out of fear? Is the union between Joseph and Celestine symbolic of that between the fascists and Europe?
For those interested in this last theme I highly recommend Vittoria De Sica's brilliant The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971).
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)
- DennisLittrell
- Sep 16, 2002
- Permalink
no concessions
The best thing about Bunuel is his ruthless lucidity, and it's thoroughly on display here. All his films start from the conviction that no one is to be pitied - or even if they are, Bunuel, like life, will not oblige, and neither the audience nor the person concerned should expect it of them. Which is not to say that all abuses are right - the film postulates that between fascist and violent criminal there is little difference, and then, true to lucid form, makes it clear at the end that evil does *not* automatically bring about its own destruction; a fact not to be lamented but fought over. Bunuel said he thought it was his most erotic film. It's not an unreasonable claim. There's not a single sex scene. Go figure.
Minor masterpiece? Quite the opposite!
Luis Buñuel, the man considered Spain's finest filmmaker and revered master of surrealism by both critics and film historians, made a surprising change of style in the first of the series of masterpiece she did in France during his last years. Taking out his usual surrealist set-pieces, he adapts Octave Mirbeau's revered novel about social classes in a very straight-forward fashion. However, this does not mean the movie is bad as many may believe; quite the opposite, "Le Journal d'eune Femme de Chambre" is a perfect showcase of Buñuel's finest film-making style, ambiguous and stylish, like the master's own vision of life.
The plot follows Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), an urban young woman moving to country in 30s France to work as a chambermaid for the Monteils, a rich family with a few dark secrets. As soon as she arrives, problems start as she tries to adapt to her new life with the bizarre Monteils. Between the constant advances of sexually insatiable Monsieur Monteil (Michel Piccoli), the always vigilant eye of his materialist wife (Françoise Lugagne) and the shoe fetish of old Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne); Celestine makes her way through this collection of living portraits of the most bizarre human nature.
With a plot like this it would easy to believe this is a movie where the high class is demonized and the poor sanctified, but this is not the case here. Buñuel makes sure to have an ambiguity in every character, even in Celestine herself. There is no black and white, just different shades of gray, in a way similar to the beautiful black & white photography he uses here.
The photography is essential in this film; not only for aesthetic purposes, it represents the dark decadent days of 30s Europe, and the pessimism latent in both rich and poor people. As I wrote above, the shades of gray match perfectly the ambiguity of a group of characters with as many virtues as flaws. Buñuel and his cast manage to create believable and realistic characters.
Jeanne Moreau gives a brilliant performance as Celestine. As the beautiful young city woman highly intelligent and not without aspirations, her character has enough room to let her shine, and she really makes the most of it. Equally brilliant is Georges Géret as Joseph, the tough gardener with fascist ideals that has a secret agenda. The rest of the cast is also very good and together with the witty script complete a superb character-driven movie.
Buñuel's masterful direction creates a film that, while completely focused on the characters, is still filled with his usual symbolism. The edition and the camera-work are superb and way the camera seems to flow inside the house gives the film a voyeuristic feeling. No wonder why Buñuel consider it a very erotic film.
While many people consider this movie as one of his "lesser works", I consider it to be quite underrated, as it proved that Buñuel was a master not only of surrealism, but of film-making in general. 9/10
The plot follows Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), an urban young woman moving to country in 30s France to work as a chambermaid for the Monteils, a rich family with a few dark secrets. As soon as she arrives, problems start as she tries to adapt to her new life with the bizarre Monteils. Between the constant advances of sexually insatiable Monsieur Monteil (Michel Piccoli), the always vigilant eye of his materialist wife (Françoise Lugagne) and the shoe fetish of old Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne); Celestine makes her way through this collection of living portraits of the most bizarre human nature.
With a plot like this it would easy to believe this is a movie where the high class is demonized and the poor sanctified, but this is not the case here. Buñuel makes sure to have an ambiguity in every character, even in Celestine herself. There is no black and white, just different shades of gray, in a way similar to the beautiful black & white photography he uses here.
The photography is essential in this film; not only for aesthetic purposes, it represents the dark decadent days of 30s Europe, and the pessimism latent in both rich and poor people. As I wrote above, the shades of gray match perfectly the ambiguity of a group of characters with as many virtues as flaws. Buñuel and his cast manage to create believable and realistic characters.
Jeanne Moreau gives a brilliant performance as Celestine. As the beautiful young city woman highly intelligent and not without aspirations, her character has enough room to let her shine, and she really makes the most of it. Equally brilliant is Georges Géret as Joseph, the tough gardener with fascist ideals that has a secret agenda. The rest of the cast is also very good and together with the witty script complete a superb character-driven movie.
Buñuel's masterful direction creates a film that, while completely focused on the characters, is still filled with his usual symbolism. The edition and the camera-work are superb and way the camera seems to flow inside the house gives the film a voyeuristic feeling. No wonder why Buñuel consider it a very erotic film.
While many people consider this movie as one of his "lesser works", I consider it to be quite underrated, as it proved that Buñuel was a master not only of surrealism, but of film-making in general. 9/10
The best of the three
Jeanne Moreau plays a French chambermaid in around 1900 at a country estate in France. Every man she meets wants her. When a little girl who is sort of kept by the staff as a pet is raped and killed our heroine Celesitne decides to prove one of those men killed the girl. She tries to entrap him into confession with the lure of sex and the promise of marriage. I liked every minute of this movie but for the life of me I can't understand the ending, or the lack of one rather. This movie has a decided 1990s flavor since that was the decade of no proper ending.
- killercharm
- Aug 29, 2020
- Permalink
Excellent film:
- Galina_movie_fan
- Sep 12, 2006
- Permalink
Parisian chambermaid enters the bourgeois world of the French countryside of the 1920s - a world out of joint
As in most of his other attempts, Luis Bunuel invites the audience to take on a somewhat unusual view of the human psyche in general and of the social conventions of a certain segment of society in particular. Here it is a eccentric bourgeois family living in their secluded microcosm of a stately home in the French countryside, strangely remote from the historic upheavals going on in France and in the rest of Europe. Jeanne Moureau, starring as a Parisian chambermaid entering this microcosm almost like an alien intruder, heads a basically well-chosen cast, even though some of the minor characters remain largely undeveloped. Since the film unabashedly defies the modern(ist) tendency to closure, this disturbing portrait of the bourgeois world of the French countryside of the 1920 can be called post-modern in the true sense of the word.
- c.j.ganter
- Mar 16, 2005
- Permalink
Two times a week? Mon Dieu!
This is only my second Bunel film (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), and I am fascinated with the way he portrays the upper crust. here we have an odd family with some strange habits. Didn't you always think they were like that. It's the old joke about how you can determine class bu how two couples sit in a car. Lower class - men in front and women in the back; middle class husbands and wives sit together; upper class husbands sit with the other's wife.
Show fetishes, randy husbands, cold wives, rape and murder are all here amidst a fascist France. They are always going on about the republicans, ours would fit right in with the anti-semitism and xenophobia.
Among all this is the classic acting of Jeanne Moreau, a classy chambermaid, who is even willing to marry a fascist to prove him guilty of murder and rape. In the end, she turns out to be just an opportunist.
It would probably be more enjoyable knowing more about 1930s France, but it was still a classic.
Show fetishes, randy husbands, cold wives, rape and murder are all here amidst a fascist France. They are always going on about the republicans, ours would fit right in with the anti-semitism and xenophobia.
Among all this is the classic acting of Jeanne Moreau, a classy chambermaid, who is even willing to marry a fascist to prove him guilty of murder and rape. In the end, she turns out to be just an opportunist.
It would probably be more enjoyable knowing more about 1930s France, but it was still a classic.
- lastliberal
- Jun 25, 2008
- Permalink
A Clash Of Symbols
- writers_reign
- May 20, 2006
- Permalink
How Low Can Moreau Go?
- Griffin-Mill
- Dec 24, 2004
- Permalink
Classic social satire about a young woman taking a servant's job in a provincial French family by the Spanish master of Surrealism Luis Buñuel
Vintage Buñuelian ironical film dealing with Celestine the chambermaid, so she has new job on the country. There she works for are a group of strange people, the family is from the bourgeois class, The Monteils. The ambitious, beautiful Celestine (Jeanne Moreau gives one of her best film performances) makes it from Downstairs to Upstairs by manipulating right-wing lord (Michel Piccoli), wife (Francois Lugagne), his fascist gamekeeper Joseph (Georges Géret), his leftist neighbour (Ivernel) and causes quite a stir among the variously uptight, perverse and violent inhabitants.
This is a free adaptation of the notorious novel by Octave Mirabeau, being Luis Buñue's first foray into French cinema and easing into an atmosphere of sexual hypocrisy and decadence. The story is that of vixenish Celestine, a Parisian waitress who arrives at a country house to serve the Monteil family, her presence will cause a series of embarrassing and disconcerting situations. Octatave Mirabeau's muckracking, famous 1900 novel has abiding insight into the deep structures of French political instability. Buñuel shifts the tale from 1900s to the rise of fascism in the 30s, being very stylized in direction and set design. Buñuel digs right down to that spiritual gunge which links social, political and sexual positions and impositions as equal perversions of human desires in turn perversions of animal desires. Stars Jeanne Moreau who gives a nice acting as a sophisticated and self-assured woman from Paris joins a middle-class rural estate as a maid. Like most Buñuel heroines Celestine is intuitively a feminist, but before her time, and blows it by her ambivalence and egoism before male ruthlessness. This ¨Le journal d'une femme de chambre¨(1964) is a remake of ¨Diary of a Chambermaid¨ (1946) an unsettling rendition by Jean Renoir produced during Renoir's years in Hollywood, being played by Paulette Goddard, Burgues Meredith, Hurt Hatfield and there're other adaptations made by Jess Frank or Jesús Franco.
This wry and engaging motion picture was compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time. Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both subversive behavior and religion , issues well shown in a lot of films and that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. This Buñuel's strange film belongs to his French second period ; in fact, it's plenty of known French actors. As Buñuel ived in various countries: Spain, France, Mexico where stayed many years and subsequently emigrated from Mexico to France and in the latter filmed other excellent movies. After moving to Paris, at the beginning , a young Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs, including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein. With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot. The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his second picture, the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War, where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨, as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros. Luís subsequently went on his Mexican period, so he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in ¨Los Olvidados¨ (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries, though many of them are well worth seeking out. As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz", ¨Robinson Crusoe¨, ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . And finally his French-Spanish period in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière with notorious as well as polemic films such as: ¨Viridiana¨ , Tristana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", ¨Belle De Jou¨ and his last picture , "That Obscure Object of Desire". Rating: 7/10. Well worth watching for Luis Buñuel followers.
This is a free adaptation of the notorious novel by Octave Mirabeau, being Luis Buñue's first foray into French cinema and easing into an atmosphere of sexual hypocrisy and decadence. The story is that of vixenish Celestine, a Parisian waitress who arrives at a country house to serve the Monteil family, her presence will cause a series of embarrassing and disconcerting situations. Octatave Mirabeau's muckracking, famous 1900 novel has abiding insight into the deep structures of French political instability. Buñuel shifts the tale from 1900s to the rise of fascism in the 30s, being very stylized in direction and set design. Buñuel digs right down to that spiritual gunge which links social, political and sexual positions and impositions as equal perversions of human desires in turn perversions of animal desires. Stars Jeanne Moreau who gives a nice acting as a sophisticated and self-assured woman from Paris joins a middle-class rural estate as a maid. Like most Buñuel heroines Celestine is intuitively a feminist, but before her time, and blows it by her ambivalence and egoism before male ruthlessness. This ¨Le journal d'une femme de chambre¨(1964) is a remake of ¨Diary of a Chambermaid¨ (1946) an unsettling rendition by Jean Renoir produced during Renoir's years in Hollywood, being played by Paulette Goddard, Burgues Meredith, Hurt Hatfield and there're other adaptations made by Jess Frank or Jesús Franco.
This wry and engaging motion picture was compellingly directed by Luis Buñuel who was voted the 14th Greatest Director of all time. Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both subversive behavior and religion , issues well shown in a lot of films and that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. This Buñuel's strange film belongs to his French second period ; in fact, it's plenty of known French actors. As Buñuel ived in various countries: Spain, France, Mexico where stayed many years and subsequently emigrated from Mexico to France and in the latter filmed other excellent movies. After moving to Paris, at the beginning , a young Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs, including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein. With financial help from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film , this 17-minute "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its disturbing images and surrealist plot. The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his second picture, the scabrous witty and violent "Age of Gold" (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War, where he made ¨Las Hurdes¨, as Luis emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros. Luís subsequently went on his Mexican period, so he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in ¨Los Olvidados¨ (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries, though many of them are well worth seeking out. As he went on filming "The Great Madcap" , ¨The brute¨, "Wuthering Heights", ¨El¨ , "The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De la Cruz", ¨Robinson Crusoe¨, ¨Death in the garden¨ and many others . And finally his French-Spanish period in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière with notorious as well as polemic films such as: ¨Viridiana¨ , Tristana¨ , ¨The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", ¨Belle De Jou¨ and his last picture , "That Obscure Object of Desire". Rating: 7/10. Well worth watching for Luis Buñuel followers.
Diary of a Chambermaid
I haven't read the novel nor have I seen Renoir's movie of the same so I can't comment. Bunel's version is depressing. No one in the movie comes off well regardless of class. Every character is boringly out for themselves, there is no good, everyone is bad. The chambermaid herself is a slick goldigger without principles like everyone else in the film. She may be used by the upper class but she gets her revenge in spades. Although she wants the murderer of the young child punished she is not above reproach. The film finds nothing appealing about anything, it is a foul view of mankind. Everything and everyone is a target for Bunel's spew here. Too bad, he's no Fellini. He has no compassion and sees no higher purpose to life in this film than selfishness.
Finally a Bunuel film I can make sense of! Oh, nevermind.
This is the most straight-forward film I've seen by the surrealist master Bunuel, and despite its cryptic turn in the final moments, is funny, chilling, and a bit nasty. The story follows an urbane chambermaid from Paris who comes to work at the country estate of a repressed bourgeosie family. She weathers passes from every man in sight and deflects them, but for morally ambiguous reasons. Moral ambiguity is rampant, as it is so often in Bunuel's films, and spread liberally amongst all classes. It's subtly a film about selling out, except that nobody seemed to have any principles to begin with. Good fun. Now tell me what the ending was all about.
No Hope, No Future in This Swampy World
- ilpohirvonen
- Jan 31, 2011
- Permalink
Stunning
- JasparLamarCrabb
- Apr 26, 2009
- Permalink
Once again, Luis Buñuel brings us a scathing attack against Western culture
- planktonrules
- Jul 7, 2006
- Permalink
A double-bill of LE JOURNAL D'UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE
A double-bill of two films transmuting Octave Mirbeau's source novel LE JOURNAL D'UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE onto the celluloid, made by two cinematic titans: Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel, 18 years apart.
Renoir's version is made in 1946 during his Hollywood spell, starring Paulette Goddard as our heroine Celestine, a Parisian girl arrives in the rural Lanlaire mansion to work as the chambermaid in 1885, barely alighting from the train, Celestine has already been rebuffed by the haughty valet Joseph (an excellently surly Lederer), and confides to the also newly arrived scullery maid Louise (a mousy and dowdy Irene Ryan) that she will do whatever in her power to advancing her social position and firmly proclaims that love is absolutely off limits, and the film uses the literal diary- writing sequences as a recurrent motif to trace Celestine's inner thoughts.
The objects of her tease are Captain Lanlaire (Owen), the patriarch who has relinquished his monetary sovereignty to his wife (Judith Anderson, emanating a tangy air of gentility and callousness); and Captain Mauger (a comical Burgess Meredith, who also pens the screenplay off his own bat), the Lanlaire's goofy neighbor who has a florae-wolfing proclivity and is perennially at loggerheads with the former on grounds of the discrepancy in their political slants, both are caricatured as lecherous old geezers with the death of a pet squirrel prefiguring the less jaunty denouement.
In Renoir's book, the story has a central belle-époque sickly romantic sophistication to sabotage Celestine's materialistic pursuit, here her love interest is George (Hurd Hatfield), the infirm son of the Lanlaire family, a defeatist borne out of upper-crust comfort and has no self-assurance to hazard a courtship to the one he hankers after. Only when Joseph, a proletariat like Celestine, turns murderous and betrays his rapacious nature, and foists a hapless Celestine into going away with him, is George spurred into action, but he is physically no match of Joseph, only with the succor from the plebeian mob on the Bastille Day, Celestine is whisked out of harm's way, the entire process is shrouded by a jocose and melodramatic state of exigency and Renoir makes ascertain that its impact is wholesome and wonderfully eye-pleasing.
In paralleled with Buñuel's interpretation of the story, Renoir has his innate affinity towards the aristocracy (however ludicrous and enfeebled are those peopled) and its paraphernalia, the story is less lurid and occasionally gets off on a comedic bent through Goddard's vibrant performance juggling between a social-climber and a damsel-in-distress.
The same adjective "comedic", "vibrant" certainly doesn't pertain to Buñuel's version, here the time-line has been relocated to the mid-1930s, Celestine (played by Jeanne Moreau with toothsome reticence and ambivalence) more often than not, keeps her own counsel, we don't even once see her writing on the titular diary, she works for Mr. and Mrs Monteil (Piccoli and Lugagne), who are childless but live with Madame's father Mr. Rabour (Ozenne, decorous in his condescending aloofness), an aristo secretly revels in boots fetish in spite of his dotage. Here the bourgeois combo is composed of a frigid and niggardly wife, a sexed-up and henpecked husband (Mr. Piccoli makes for a particularly farcical womanizer, armed with the same pick-up line), a seemingly genteel but kinky father, and Captain Mauger (Ivernel), here is less cartoonish but no less uppity, objectionable and erratic; whereas Joseph (Géret), is a rightist, anti-Semitic groom whose perversion is to a great extent much more obscene (rape, mutilation and pedophilia are not for those fainted hearts).
Amongst those anathemas, Celestine must put on her poker face, or sometimes even a bored face to be pliant (she even acquiesces to be called as Marie which Goddard thinks better of in Renoir's movie), she is apparently stand-offish but covertly rebellious, and when a heinous crime occurs (a Red Riding Hood tale garnished with snails), she instinctively decides to seek justice and tries insinuating her way into a confession from the suspect through her corporeal submission, only the perpetrator is not a dolt either, unlike Renoir's Joseph, he knows what is at stakes and knows when to jettison his prey and start anew, that is a quite disturbing finale if one is not familiar with an ending where a murderer gets away with his grisly crime. But Buñuel cunningly precedes the ending with a close-up of a contemplating Celestine, after she finally earns her breakfast-in-bed privilege, it could suggest that what followed is derived from her fantasy, which can dodge the bullet if there must be.
Brandishing his implacable anti-bourgeoisie flag, Buñuel thoughtfully blunts his surrealistic abandon to give more room for dramaturgy and logical equilibrium, which commendably conjures up an astringent satire laying into the depravity and inhumanity of the privileged but also doesn't mince words in asserting that it doesn't live and die with them, original sin is immanent, one just cannot be too watchful.
Last but definitely not the least, R.I.P. the one and only Ms. Moreau, who just passed away at the age of 89, and in this film she is a formidable heroine, brave, sultry and immune to all the mushy sentiments, whose fierce, inscrutable look is more than a reflection of her temperaments, but a riveting affidavit of a bygone era's defining feature.
Renoir's version is made in 1946 during his Hollywood spell, starring Paulette Goddard as our heroine Celestine, a Parisian girl arrives in the rural Lanlaire mansion to work as the chambermaid in 1885, barely alighting from the train, Celestine has already been rebuffed by the haughty valet Joseph (an excellently surly Lederer), and confides to the also newly arrived scullery maid Louise (a mousy and dowdy Irene Ryan) that she will do whatever in her power to advancing her social position and firmly proclaims that love is absolutely off limits, and the film uses the literal diary- writing sequences as a recurrent motif to trace Celestine's inner thoughts.
The objects of her tease are Captain Lanlaire (Owen), the patriarch who has relinquished his monetary sovereignty to his wife (Judith Anderson, emanating a tangy air of gentility and callousness); and Captain Mauger (a comical Burgess Meredith, who also pens the screenplay off his own bat), the Lanlaire's goofy neighbor who has a florae-wolfing proclivity and is perennially at loggerheads with the former on grounds of the discrepancy in their political slants, both are caricatured as lecherous old geezers with the death of a pet squirrel prefiguring the less jaunty denouement.
In Renoir's book, the story has a central belle-époque sickly romantic sophistication to sabotage Celestine's materialistic pursuit, here her love interest is George (Hurd Hatfield), the infirm son of the Lanlaire family, a defeatist borne out of upper-crust comfort and has no self-assurance to hazard a courtship to the one he hankers after. Only when Joseph, a proletariat like Celestine, turns murderous and betrays his rapacious nature, and foists a hapless Celestine into going away with him, is George spurred into action, but he is physically no match of Joseph, only with the succor from the plebeian mob on the Bastille Day, Celestine is whisked out of harm's way, the entire process is shrouded by a jocose and melodramatic state of exigency and Renoir makes ascertain that its impact is wholesome and wonderfully eye-pleasing.
In paralleled with Buñuel's interpretation of the story, Renoir has his innate affinity towards the aristocracy (however ludicrous and enfeebled are those peopled) and its paraphernalia, the story is less lurid and occasionally gets off on a comedic bent through Goddard's vibrant performance juggling between a social-climber and a damsel-in-distress.
The same adjective "comedic", "vibrant" certainly doesn't pertain to Buñuel's version, here the time-line has been relocated to the mid-1930s, Celestine (played by Jeanne Moreau with toothsome reticence and ambivalence) more often than not, keeps her own counsel, we don't even once see her writing on the titular diary, she works for Mr. and Mrs Monteil (Piccoli and Lugagne), who are childless but live with Madame's father Mr. Rabour (Ozenne, decorous in his condescending aloofness), an aristo secretly revels in boots fetish in spite of his dotage. Here the bourgeois combo is composed of a frigid and niggardly wife, a sexed-up and henpecked husband (Mr. Piccoli makes for a particularly farcical womanizer, armed with the same pick-up line), a seemingly genteel but kinky father, and Captain Mauger (Ivernel), here is less cartoonish but no less uppity, objectionable and erratic; whereas Joseph (Géret), is a rightist, anti-Semitic groom whose perversion is to a great extent much more obscene (rape, mutilation and pedophilia are not for those fainted hearts).
Amongst those anathemas, Celestine must put on her poker face, or sometimes even a bored face to be pliant (she even acquiesces to be called as Marie which Goddard thinks better of in Renoir's movie), she is apparently stand-offish but covertly rebellious, and when a heinous crime occurs (a Red Riding Hood tale garnished with snails), she instinctively decides to seek justice and tries insinuating her way into a confession from the suspect through her corporeal submission, only the perpetrator is not a dolt either, unlike Renoir's Joseph, he knows what is at stakes and knows when to jettison his prey and start anew, that is a quite disturbing finale if one is not familiar with an ending where a murderer gets away with his grisly crime. But Buñuel cunningly precedes the ending with a close-up of a contemplating Celestine, after she finally earns her breakfast-in-bed privilege, it could suggest that what followed is derived from her fantasy, which can dodge the bullet if there must be.
Brandishing his implacable anti-bourgeoisie flag, Buñuel thoughtfully blunts his surrealistic abandon to give more room for dramaturgy and logical equilibrium, which commendably conjures up an astringent satire laying into the depravity and inhumanity of the privileged but also doesn't mince words in asserting that it doesn't live and die with them, original sin is immanent, one just cannot be too watchful.
Last but definitely not the least, R.I.P. the one and only Ms. Moreau, who just passed away at the age of 89, and in this film she is a formidable heroine, brave, sultry and immune to all the mushy sentiments, whose fierce, inscrutable look is more than a reflection of her temperaments, but a riveting affidavit of a bygone era's defining feature.
- lasttimeisaw
- Aug 2, 2017
- Permalink
Grubs and maids back in the day
- Horst_In_Translation
- May 5, 2023
- Permalink
"I guess, people don't have much fun here."
DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID is a crime comedy, which on a surreal way connects a radical politics, corruption, violence, and sexual perversions. Mr. Buñuel is not making fun of some kind of tradition, he just points to the shocking background of a provincial town.
Célestine is an ambitious and attractive maid, from Paris, who comes to work for a Normandy estate. Her hosts are crazed, violent and perverse. The elderly father is a harmless old fetishist, his daughter is a frigid and meticulous woman, while her husband can't keep his hands off the servants. Here are their servants and a neighbor, retired Army officer, who shares his bed with a chubby maid. Célestine must wisely choose men who surround her...
The story is placed in the middle of the 1930s. A woman has completely disrupted relations and instincts between other protagonists in this film. It's kind of a surreal view on a provincial environment and the relation between a nationalism, petty bourgeois and religion.
Mr. Buñuel has put a strange household in the correlation with the French social structure. Characterization is very good. Completely different characters fight, in a surreal atmosphere, to achieve their ambitions. However, the epilogue is more than realistic.
Jeanne Moreau as Célestine is a smart and very capable woman. She pushes her temperament in the right direction. She has become an essential part in the lives of people and hostile environment that surrounds her. She waited patiently for the right opportunity to remove a "rotten tissue" and realize her ambition. Ms. Moreau offered very good performance.
This is, perhaps a little unclear story, but it is an effective and fun experience.
Célestine is an ambitious and attractive maid, from Paris, who comes to work for a Normandy estate. Her hosts are crazed, violent and perverse. The elderly father is a harmless old fetishist, his daughter is a frigid and meticulous woman, while her husband can't keep his hands off the servants. Here are their servants and a neighbor, retired Army officer, who shares his bed with a chubby maid. Célestine must wisely choose men who surround her...
The story is placed in the middle of the 1930s. A woman has completely disrupted relations and instincts between other protagonists in this film. It's kind of a surreal view on a provincial environment and the relation between a nationalism, petty bourgeois and religion.
Mr. Buñuel has put a strange household in the correlation with the French social structure. Characterization is very good. Completely different characters fight, in a surreal atmosphere, to achieve their ambitions. However, the epilogue is more than realistic.
Jeanne Moreau as Célestine is a smart and very capable woman. She pushes her temperament in the right direction. She has become an essential part in the lives of people and hostile environment that surrounds her. She waited patiently for the right opportunity to remove a "rotten tissue" and realize her ambition. Ms. Moreau offered very good performance.
This is, perhaps a little unclear story, but it is an effective and fun experience.
- elvircorhodzic
- Aug 25, 2017
- Permalink
An abnormally normal film for Bunuel standards
"Le journal d'une femme de chambre" is a film from Luis Bunuel's late (and most productive) period. In this period most of his films are about the hypocrisy of the upper middle class / bourgeoisie. "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" is no exception.
In different films this hypocrisy takes the form of a sexual perversion. In "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" there is fetishism, in "Viridiana" (1961) there is necrophilia and in "Belle de joure" a woman prostitutes herself out of boredom.
Special for "Le journal d"une femme de chambre" is that the working class is also not very likeable. There is a handyman with fascist ideas and main character Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) wants above all to rise to the same class of her employer.
For a Bunuel movie "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" has a remarkable amount of plot. According to Bunuel standards this is an abnormally normal film.
The plot is about a murder mystery in a mansion in which masters and servers have their own seperated worlds. In this respect the film resembles "Gosford Park" (2001, Robert Altman).
In both "Gosford Park" and "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" the murder case isn't solved at the end. In "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" I think this is indicative of the personality of the main character. She commits her female charms rather for enhancing her social status then for finding the murderer of her friend.
In different films this hypocrisy takes the form of a sexual perversion. In "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" there is fetishism, in "Viridiana" (1961) there is necrophilia and in "Belle de joure" a woman prostitutes herself out of boredom.
Special for "Le journal d"une femme de chambre" is that the working class is also not very likeable. There is a handyman with fascist ideas and main character Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) wants above all to rise to the same class of her employer.
For a Bunuel movie "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" has a remarkable amount of plot. According to Bunuel standards this is an abnormally normal film.
The plot is about a murder mystery in a mansion in which masters and servers have their own seperated worlds. In this respect the film resembles "Gosford Park" (2001, Robert Altman).
In both "Gosford Park" and "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" the murder case isn't solved at the end. In "Le journal d'une femme de chambre" I think this is indicative of the personality of the main character. She commits her female charms rather for enhancing her social status then for finding the murderer of her friend.
- frankde-jong
- Jan 19, 2024
- Permalink
The darker side of "The Rules of the Game"
- ElMaruecan82
- Aug 10, 2017
- Permalink
6.7/10. Not a "MUST WATCH", still recommended
I have watched some Bunuel movies ( THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE/Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie/Belle de jour/Viridiana/El ángel exterminador). Some of them were masterpieces. This one is definitely my least favorite of his. It started well, first part is something like a dark comedy, Moreau commanded the screen and the whole depiction of this "Bourgeois morality" was accurate, vitriolic, even funny. However, second part fell flat. Tone was changed, this was now a drama, dark and disturbing. I think that this change was an unsuccessful choice. I had no problem with the tone per se, but the movie became a bit bland and uninteresting. As another reviewer mentioned, this is uneven. Too cold and dry and the ending is less satisfying than it should be. Some people will love the cynicism and the bitterness though, it's definitely a good movie at least, i just didn't roll with it.
- athanasiosze
- May 1, 2024
- Permalink
Morality
The film makes an unusual and perceptive study of human morality the situations depicted in the film may be exaggerated and set in another era, but Luis Bruñel manages to strike an easy resonance with us-the viewers.
Although the film spends a lot of time showing the bourgeois and their entourage, the film is mainly concerned with the morally ambiguous chambermaid, Célestine (played by Jeanne Moreau) and the strange servant Joseph. The shifting relationship between Célestine and Joseph is constantly surprising and we never really know what either of the characters is playing at. Neither character can claim moral superiority Célestine is ultimately shown to be a spineless opportunist and Joseph a possible murderer.
The ending of the film, a sober moment which presages the inevitable rise of fascism in Europe, also sends a shiver down the spine, even if it feels frustratingly disconnected from the rest of the film.
Although the film spends a lot of time showing the bourgeois and their entourage, the film is mainly concerned with the morally ambiguous chambermaid, Célestine (played by Jeanne Moreau) and the strange servant Joseph. The shifting relationship between Célestine and Joseph is constantly surprising and we never really know what either of the characters is playing at. Neither character can claim moral superiority Célestine is ultimately shown to be a spineless opportunist and Joseph a possible murderer.
The ending of the film, a sober moment which presages the inevitable rise of fascism in Europe, also sends a shiver down the spine, even if it feels frustratingly disconnected from the rest of the film.
- amberacqua
- Dec 17, 2008
- Permalink