Buñuel creates a secret theatre of erotic shame. This is the story of glacial beauty Séverine, played by Catherine Deneuve in a nimbly cool iconic performance, the beautiful, bored young wife of a wealthy Parisian surgeon, who submits to her conjugal duties rarely and unwillingly, but becomes a high-class prostitute during the day, answering only to the name Belle de Jour and experiencing a secret erotic martyrdom, all deeply bound up with childhood abuse which resurfaces in the form of disturbing flashbacks. These Buñuel coolly intersperses with her dreams and reveries, which appear to take place in the chateau and grounds of some Sadeian romance. Featuring a rogues’ gallery of toxic johns (including an eccentric turn from cult actor Pierre Clémenti), Belle de Jour is a subversive surrealist erotic masterpiece.