Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

lasttimeisaw A double-bill of two films transmuting Octave Mirbeau's source novel LE JOURNAL D'UNE FEMME DE CHAMBRE onto the celluloid, made by two cinematic titans: Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel, 18 years apart. Renoir's version is made in 1946 during his Hollywood spell, starring Paulette Goddard as our heroine Celestine, a Parisian girl arrives in the rural Lanlaire mansion to work as the chambermaid in 1885, barely alighting from the train, Celestine has already been rebuffed by the haughty valet Joseph (an excellently surly Lederer), and confides to the also newly arrived scullery maid Louise (a mousy and dowdy Irene Ryan) that she will do whatever in her power to advancing her social position and firmly proclaims that love is absolutely off limits, and the film uses the literal diary- writing sequences as a recurrent motif to trace Celestine's inner thoughts. The objects of her tease are Captain Lanlaire (Owen), the patriarch who has relinquished his monetary sovereignty to his wife (Judith Anderson, emanating a tangy air of gentility and callousness); and Captain Mauger (a comical Burgess Meredith, who also pens the screenplay off his own bat), the Lanlaire's goofy neighbor who has a florae-wolfing proclivity and is perennially at loggerheads with the former on grounds of the discrepancy in their political slants, both are caricatured as lecherous old geezers with the death of a pet squirrel prefiguring the less jaunty denouement. In Renoir's book, the story has a central belle-époque sickly romantic sophistication to sabotage Celestine's materialistic pursuit, here her love interest is George (Hurd Hatfield), the infirm son of the Lanlaire family, a defeatist borne out of upper-crust comfort and has no self-assurance to hazard a courtship to the one he hankers after. Only when Joseph, a proletariat like Celestine, turns murderous and betrays his rapacious nature, and foists a hapless Celestine into going away with him, is George spurred into action, but he is physically no match of Joseph, only with the succor from the plebeian mob on the Bastille Day, Celestine is whisked out of harm's way, the entire process is shrouded by a jocose and melodramatic state of exigency and Renoir makes ascertain that its impact is wholesome and wonderfully eye-pleasing. In paralleled with Buñuel's interpretation of the story, Renoir has his innate affinity towards the aristocracy (however ludicrous and enfeebled are those peopled) and its paraphernalia, the story is less lurid and occasionally gets off on a comedic bent through Goddard's vibrant performance juggling between a social-climber and a damsel-in-distress. The same adjective "comedic", "vibrant" certainly doesn't pertain to Buñuel's version, here the time-line has been relocated to the mid-1930s, Celestine (played by Jeanne Moreau with toothsome reticence and ambivalence) more often than not, keeps her own counsel, we don't even once see her writing on the titular diary, she works for Mr. and Mrs Monteil (Piccoli and Lugagne), who are childless but live with Madame's father Mr. Rabour (Ozenne, decorous in his condescending aloofness), an aristo secretly revels in boots fetish in spite of his dotage. Here the bourgeois combo is composed of a frigid and niggardly wife, a sexed-up and henpecked husband (Mr. Piccoli makes for a particularly farcical womanizer, armed with the same pick-up line), a seemingly genteel but kinky father, and Captain Mauger (Ivernel), here is less cartoonish but no less uppity, objectionable and erratic; whereas Joseph (Géret), is a rightist, anti-Semitic groom whose perversion is to a great extent much more obscene (rape, mutilation and pedophilia are not for those fainted hearts). Amongst those anathemas, Celestine must put on her poker face, or sometimes even a bored face to be pliant (she even acquiesces to be called as Marie which Goddard thinks better of in Renoir's movie), she is apparently stand-offish but covertly rebellious, and when a heinous crime occurs (a Red Riding Hood tale garnished with snails), she instinctively decides to seek justice and tries insinuating her way into a confession from the suspect through her corporeal submission, only the perpetrator is not a dolt either, unlike Renoir's Joseph, he knows what is at stakes and knows when to jettison his prey and start anew, that is a quite disturbing finale if one is not familiar with an ending where a murderer gets away with his grisly crime. But Buñuel cunningly precedes the ending with a close-up of a contemplating Celestine, after she finally earns her breakfast-in-bed privilege, it could suggest that what followed is derived from her fantasy, which can dodge the bullet if there must be. Brandishing his implacable anti-bourgeoisie flag, Buñuel thoughtfully blunts his surrealistic abandon to give more room for dramaturgy and logical equilibrium, which commendably conjures up an astringent satire laying into the depravity and inhumanity of the privileged but also doesn't mince words in asserting that it doesn't live and die with them, original sin is immanent, one just cannot be too watchful. Last but definitely not the least, R.I.P. the one and only Ms. Moreau, who just passed away at the age of 89, and in this film she is a formidable heroine, brave, sultry and immune to all the mushy sentiments, whose fierce, inscrutable look is more than a reflection of her temperaments, but a riveting affidavit of a bygone era's defining feature.

Claudio Carvalho In the 30's, the witty, literate and quite sophisticated chambermaid Céléstine (Jeanne Moreau) comes from Paris to work for the dysfunctional Monteil family in the country, more specifically for the fetishist on shoes and maniac for cleaning Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne). His daughter and mistress of the house Madame Monteil (Françoise Lugagne) is a frigid and arrogant woman, and her husband, Monsieur Monteil (Michel Piccoli), is a hunter and also a wolf with their maids. Their fascist and rude worker Joseph (Georges Géret) feels a sexual attraction for Céléstine, but she repels him. Their neighbor, Captain Mauger (Daniel Ivernel), has a problem with the Monteils and dumps his garbage in their yard, but Céléstine talks to him and is motive of gossips. When Monsieur Rabour unexpectedly dies, Céléstine quits her job but while in the train station, she finds that the girl Claire was found raped and murdered by the police. Céléstine returns to her job convinced that Joseph killed the little girl and trying to find evidences against him."Le Journal d'une Femme de Chambre" is a delightful movie of undefined genre – drama, black comedy, adventure? – where Luis Buñuel again exposes fight of classes, hypocrisy of both the bourgeois and the working class, a historical moment in France with the fascism growing, the ridiculous role of the clerical and an unsolved murder case. The story is centered in Céléstine, but the motives why a woman with her profile accepts a job in a rural area is never clear. The identity of the rapist and killer of Claire is also not disclosed, there is only a strong insinuation that Joseph killed the girl. The story is very ironic, like for example when Monsieur Monteil is informed that Céléstine and Joseph will marry and requires the sexual favors from Marianne; or the weird fetishism of Monsieur Rabour; or the priest asking for a new roof for the church to Madame Monteil; or the conclusion with Captain Mauger changing his will and serving the mistress and smart Céléstine on their bed. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Diário de uma Camareira" ("The Diary of a Chambermaid")

jotix100 Luis Bunuel directed this film right after "The Exterminating Angel", and before "Simon of the Desert". Working with his collaborator, Jean-Claude Carriere, Bunuel adapted Octave Mirbeau's novel, which by the way, had already been brought to the screen by Jean Renoir, years before this film went into production. This is what could be considered Luis Bunuel's most realistic work, as he tells a straight forward story with only slight detours into the realm of his beloved surrealism."Diary of a Chambermaid", which takes place at the end of the XIX century in the novel, is set in rural France in the early thirties. There is a rise in anti Jewish feelings as expressed by what the gardener and driver Joseph expresses himself without shame. Mr. Bunuel also makes fun at his own expense by having a local political figure condemn his earlier film "L'age d'or".Bunuel's target were always the bourgeoisie and the clergy. Both of them are represented in the movie by the Monteil's household and the family priest, who comes to the house and knows about Monsieur Monteil's sexual escapades. Celestine, the sophisticated Parisian chambermaid hired by Mme. Monteil sticks out like a sore thumb. She can give these provincials a lesson, or two, in how to conduct themselves. Mme. Monteil, a stingy woman, warns Celestine to be careful about cleaning an expensive lamp. She watches in horror as the new maid breaks it on the first day at the house as Celestine shows no remorse.Celestine is made the object of desire by the patriarch of the family, the older M. Rabour, who insist in getting the young woman as his personal maid. He also has something else in mind: he wants her to be a sort of dominatrix by insisting that Celestine wear the stiletto heeled boots for his benefit. The older man who swears he loves butterflies quickly kills them. Celestine, who quickly catches on, gets to learn all the secrets of the Monteils. At the end, Celestine emerges much stronger, and powerful than the people that hired her.Jeanne Moreau was the perfect choice for Celestine. She knew this woman inside out and gives a luminous performance as the maid. A young Michel Piccoli is also good as M. Monteil. Georges Geret's Joseph was perhaps his best role in which he speaks the unspeakable. Francoise Lugague and Jean Ozenne appear as Mme. Monteil and Monsieur Rabour.The Criterion DVD has a wonderful look. Roger Fellous' wonderful black and white photography has been lovingly restored. The film is perhaps one of Luis Bunuel's most accessible movies.

writers_reign There may be those who would describe this as Rules Of The Game Lite dealing as it does with the mores of French society in the 1930s but one crucial difference is that Renoir made his film AT THE TIME whereas Bunuel was working a quarter of a century later. It's never really explained - unless, of course, I missed an explanation - why an intelligent, sophisticated Parisienne Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) would choose to bury herself in the French countryside in a menial position. Whatever the reason the fact that she does so gives Bunuel the chance to take his customary jaundiced view of the bourgeois household that serves as a microcosm for France as a whole and the world at large. The household is like a fruitcakes convention boasting a frigid wife, a priapic husband a fetishist grandfather and a brutal predator/murderer gamekeeper/handyman. Symbols abound not least the snails suckling on the bare legs of the murdered child, followed closely by the garbage thrown consistently into the grounds of the house by a retired army officer and academics and pseuds could get hours of mileage out of that one given the Petain/Vichy government waiting in the wings to dish up garbage by the plateful to a humbled nation. Moreau, as is to be expected, turns in a fine performance as do all the principals but I doubt if even the most devoted Bunuel buffs would want to return to it again and again.