Belle Toujours

By the time you read these words, Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira should be celebrating his 100th birthday. A reason to rejoice, in addition to the fact that the films he is producing (he’s made five shorts and a feature since he finished this one in 2006) still manage to be coherent, pithy and socially adroit.

Belle Toujours is Oliveira’s way of saluting past heroes, most notably Luis Buñuel, to whose 1967 film Belle De Jour this acts as a charming addendum. Bulle Ogier (standing in for Catherine Deneuve) assumes the roll of Séverine Serizy, the one-time bourgeois prostitute – now 38-years older and wiser – who is coerced into spending a candlelit evening with one of her old customers, Michel Piccoli’s Henri Husson.

There’s tension in the air when they first meet, due largely to the fact that Séverine is eager to know whether Husson informed her late husband of her clandestine erotic adventures all those years ago. The two leads play off each other in a magnificently discreet (and subtly amusing) manner, with Piccoli clearly relishing his upper hand and Ogier somewhat stunned by the situation she’s allowed herself into. Inter-cut with beautiful, long-held shots of the glowing Parisian skyline (to signify the passage of time), Belle Toujours is in the end a cute enquiry into the ethics of severing ties with the past. It’s a small film, but a beautiful one.

Alan Mack

Anticipation:

Revisiting one of the classics of the ‘60s – could go either way.

Enjoyment:

Perceptive, witty and perfectly realised.

In Retrospect:

Some may feel short changed due to its simplicity, but others will find it delightful.