After hearing the address of a local brothel she seeks employment there working afternoons (hence the title) while her husband is at work. Severine finds sexual and emotional satisfaction in being ordered about by the paying customers and grows to love her husband more and more, though not physically.

Events begin to spiral out of control when she becomes involved with an unsettling young criminal--a cocaine dealer and murderer with a cane and metal teeth.

Run Time:100 minutes . Region 1 encoding

Belle de Jour has a close connection to exploitation film-making. The plot is indistinguishable from a 1960s sexploitation film but the execution is sublime. (If I could say one thing to all aspiring artists it would be that what you say is not as important as how you say it.) Belle de Jour is derived from a long tradition of French erotic literature that preceded it. In turn, the film became the chief stylistic inspiration for the best of the 1970s French erotic film genre.

Belle de Jour evidences the interplay of artistic intent and social mores, with film censorship standards dictating an artistic motif. Belle de Jour has a visual theme of semi-transparency. Things are often seen indirectly, in mirrors, through rain-streaked windows, etc.. We cannot be sure, however, how much of our obscured vision of Severine is artistic intention versus social accommodation. We see her in the shower through fogged glass, walking nude through an immense villa in a transparent black floor-length veil. In the brothel we do not see her bare breasts but we do see her pubic hair delineated through her thin panties.