Belle toujours

This homage to Buñuel and his co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière puts two memorable characters from film history back onstage almost 40 years later. Piccoli again plays Henri Husson, who is in possession of the answer to a question that is very important to Sévérine. Sévérine is now played by Bulle Ogier, who manages to make you forget entirely that Deneuve did not feel like a reprise. By now in their 70s, the old acquaintances recognise each other during a concert, but it is obvious she doesn’t want to be reminded of the past. However, he doesn’t give up easily and manages to persuade her to come to dinner, with the old secrets as bait.
As earlier in Je rentre à la maison, De Oliveira very effectively portrays Paris in calm and meditative nocturnal panoramas, but that is only one of the cinematographic joys of this amusing tribute. The often surrealistic tone of Belle de Jour does not seem to have got milder with time, but more absurd. De Oliveira comments on his source of inspiration, as in scenes in a bar where Husson consumes the necessary slugs of whisky and talks to the barman and two special ladies of pleasure. In the end, at dinner, the film goes a lot further than its predecessor and a melancholy story emerges about the value of memories and how time changes everything. But even the realisation of approaching death does not stop the birds singing the song they know so well. (GT)

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