Chichester Cinema at New Park
Belle Toujours
- (Always Beautiful)
International Panorama: France / Portugal
39 years after the original Buñuel masterpiece ‘Belle de Jours’, Portuguese 98 year old master Manuel de Oliveira presents an eccentric sequel in ‘Belle Toujours’. Michel Piccoli reprises his role as the incorrigible roué Henri Husson.
In an elegant concert hall in Paris, Henri (Piccoli) suddenly spies Severine (Ogier), whom he hasn’t seen since he walked out the door in the previous film without telling her whether he had divulged her secret life as an afternoon prostitute to her wheelchair-ridden husband.
Though she does her best to avoid him, he chases her around Paris until he finally succeeds in enticing her to an intimate candlelight dinner, where she (and we) wait on tenterhooks for him to relieve her of the terrible doubt that has plagued her all her life.
A lively Piccoli takes malicious delight in this recap. He is in his element swilling scotch and chatting up young bartender Ricardo Trepa as two jaded ladies of the night (Leonor Baldaque and Julia Buisel) look on.
An array of top technical work captures the beauty of Paris, especially in the way director of photography Sabine Lancelin captures light moving over the Eiffel Tower and the city’s long boulevards and gardens. The cosy luxury of production designer Christian Magis’ interiors recall decades of French cinema past.
(subtitles)
France · 
Portugal · Portugal · 2006 · Manoel de Oliveira · 72min
| Wed | 11 Feb | 17:15 | Book | |
| Thu | 12 Feb | 16:15 | Book |
