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This is my common Buñel film. The fable is stunningly presented, an absolute work of art, unbelievably subtle but always concrete. It is like a spacious symphony: every tag is perfect.
Surprisingly (considering the title) Le journal d’une femme de chambre is not about sex, nor is it a journal for that matter. It is about politics, sexual politics of course, but also domestic politics, manor politics, and nation-state politics. The time is the thirties as fascism moves toward its mesmerizing stranglehold on a decadent Europe. The location is France (Normandy, I imagine) where the republicans fill power. In the streets are those who would be brown suits and among them is Joseph (Georges Geret), groundskeeper for a microscopic bourgeois family of degenerate eccentrics. He is an incipient Nazi, a xenophobic anti-Semitic man who worships brute force, an ignorant man that every French movie-goer knows will be a Nazi-collaborator once France is under the occupation.
The epic is seen from the point of notion of Celestine, a chambermaid of some sophistication (and an abiding, but understandable duplicity), a Parisian who has near to work for the family in the country. She is played by the incomparable Jeanne Moreau of the plastic face, a woman of many guises, many moods and an ability to depict with a search for any emotion. She is a gargantuan star of the French stage and mask who plays the fraction effortlessly, with finesse and a radiant subtlety. The screenplay by Buñel and the sparkling Jean-Claude Carriere (who penned so many outstanding films, Bell de Jour (1967), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Valmont (1989), The Ogre (1996), etc.) is an adaptation of the modern by Octave Mirbeau. There is a Hollywood film of the same name starring Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith and Judith Anderson, directed by Jean Renoir that I haven’t seen, released in 1946. I understand the treatment was more comedic and ancient.
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Surrealist Luis Buñel’s film is perhaps best described as a comédie noire, a genre antecedent to the familiar (and somewhat similar) film noir. In the latter the comedy is usually incidental and there is no attempt at any stout philosophic or symbolic significance. Here Buñel not only makes a statement about the nature of the relationship between bourgeois Europe in the thirties and fascism, but even delves into the primeval nature of women and gives us a appealing scrutinize at a woman’s state in bourgeois society. Celestine is duplicitous because she has to be to survive. She uses men the blueprint the society uses her.
Be distinct and pay halt attention to the final scene inside and outside the café and mediate the implications of what is being shown. What is being suggested? Will Joseph finally procure the punishment he so richly deserves? Or did Celestine execute the choice she made out of alarm? Is the union between Joseph and Celestine symbolic of that between the fascists and Europe?
For those keen in this last theme I highly recommend Vittoria De Sica’s sparkling The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) .
Second movie of spanish director Luis Bunuel to have the honour to enter the most praised Criterion DVD collection after THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE a few weeks ago, DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID is presented in a perfect widescreen shadowy and white copy with a well-balanced sound. As bonus features, you will relish a theatrical trailer, a printed interview of Luis Bunuel and a 25 minutes interview of screenplay writer Jean-Claude Carrière who wrote or co-wrote some of the most distinguished movies of the last thirty years.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Diary of a Chambermaid – Criterion Collection! Click Here
Adapted from a fresh of Octave Mirbeau, DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID was directed in 1964 by a Luis Bunuel already sanctified by two generations of movie lovers. French actor Michel Piccoli replaces the bunuelian Fernando Rey in the role of a member of the bourgeoisie slightly decadent and ridiculous. Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim), as the chambermaid, is a young woman coming from Paris and discovering what is like to live in the “deep” France of the early thirties.
DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID can not be classified in any specific genre. It’s a comedy yes, but with a very serious slay in the middle of the record. It’s a detective myth yes, but with harsch political critiques. In fact, it’s simply a Luis Bunuel movie with his fresh personal world impregnating a new he admired from his childhood on. Highly recommended.
A DVD zone your library.
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