Belle de Jour

Belle de Jour dramatises the collision between depravity and elegance, one of the favourite themes of director Luis Buñuel. Catherine Deneuve stars as a wealthy but bored newlywed, eager to taste life to the fullest. She seemingly gets her wish early in the film when she is kidnapped, tied to a tree and whipped. It turns out that this is only a daydream, but her subsequent visits to a neighbouring brothel, where she offers her services, certainly seem to be real. This illusion/reality dichotomy extends to the final scenes, in which we are offered two possible endings.