BELLE DE JOUR (1967)

Severine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve) is married to a well-to-do, kindly doctor but can't be intimate with him. She has occasional sadomasochistic fantasies instead. A friend (Michel Piccoli), who seems to be a professional libertine, starts a discussion with the couple and gives her a business card from a discrete, high-end brothel. She visits and signs on as an afternoon worker (hence Belle de Jour). There she makes it with a variety of yahoos, perverts and other colorful characters, including a violent young gangster who falls for her and shoots her husband. Since Louis Bunuel directed, the film has many surreal elements, not all of which work. But, Deneuve is superb--her best-ever role--and her detached, enigmatic portrayal of Severine adds to the overall mysterious feeling. The movie is beautifully filmed, but not as stunningly beautiful as Deneuve (who still looks great from the photos I see in Paris-Match).