Day: April 11, 2020

The scene that I will be analyzing is at the beginning of the movie. The main character Severine is riding horses with her husband Pierre. They are getting into an argument and then Pierre decides to drag her into the woods followed by two other men. Pierre started to undress her brutally and the two men start to hit her violently with whiplash.

I agree that the movie is old (created in 1967) but the sound effects and the footage are pretty bad. We can see that the two men hit the Severine pretty fast and hard, but whenever we see Severine getting hit it always goes slowly to her body. I think they could have done a better job doing a more realistic job by showing the men and Severine together at the same time of getting hit and not separated (one part we see them hit, and then we see the woman receiving the hit).

Also, after several hits, the woman NEVER gets any mark or redness… which shows that it is not really realistic. By the strength of the hit, she should at least get red. It is not normal that after receiving multiples hit, nothing shows up on her body. I think they could have put more emphasis on that to make it seem more real.

Severine isn’t screaming or anything while receiving the hits. She is only moaning. Before watching the entire movie, since this part was at the beginning of the movie, I thought that she was enjoying the hit and it kinda seems like she was having some hard sex… and then after finishing the movie, I wish like ohhhhhh now it make sense, she is masochistic.

Earlier this semester, we saw in class some videos of how sound is made in a movie. Since we saw these techniques, I can never see a movie without thinking about that. During the entire movie, I could only think of how poorly the sounds we’re made. I think if the movie was about to be reproduced today, they could fix this issue easily and it would give a better touch of the movie.

I also think that it was weird that her husband was watching and letting her getting beat like that. He even tells the men at the end “she is yours” and we see a man kissing her body. I thought that was pretty weird. I wouldn’t let my husband getting hit in front of me and kiss by other people… That was kinda sketch in my opinion.

Before watching my final movie, I started to watch L’Age D’Or by Luis Bunuel, but honestly, that movie was extremely weird and it was in black in white. It started with a short movie about the life of scorpions and then went on how they attack rats to some old guy praying in costumes. I was like HELL NAH so I decided to switch for Belle de Jour, a film created in 1967 by the same author from the previous movie, Luis Bunuel.

Overall, I give this movie 3.5 ratings. It was for sure different and for an old movie, I enjoyed it. There was a lot of action and I listened to it in French which was great. Last semester I had a French Film Class and honestly, the movies were pretty bad, but this one I enjoyed it. I recommend this movie if you have some time and want to watch an old movie.