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Diary Of A Chambermaid [1964]

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Jeanne Moreau (Actor), Georges Géret (Actor), Luis Buñuel (Director) Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over Format: DVD
4.6 out of 5 stars 5 customer reviews
2 new from £32.99 3 used from £14.98

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Product details

  • Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Daniel Ivernel, Françoise Lugagne, Muni
  • Directors: Luis Buñuel
  • Producers: Serge Silberman, Michel Safra
  • Format: PAL, Black & White, Widescreen, Subtitled
  • Language: French
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: Studio Canal
  • Run Time: 94 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B001AZ3RFE
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 151,803 in DVD & Blu-ray (See Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)

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SYNOPSIS: The second screen version of Octave Mirbeau's novel (originally filmed in 1946 by Jean Renoir) 'The Diary of a Chambermaid' is another of Bunuel's biting and brilliant attacks on the bourgeoisie. Written by Bunuel and his regular writing partner Jean-Claude Cariere, the film charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau, 'Jules et Jim'), a woman who comes to work in the Normandy estate occupied by Monsieur Rabour (Jean Ozenne), his daughter (Francoise Lugagne) and the duaghter's husband, the right wing Monsaiur Montiel (Michel Piccoli, 'Milou en mai'). Celestine quickly learns that M. Rabour is a more or less harmless boot fetishist, his daughter a frigid woman more concerned with the family furnishings than in returning the affections of her husband, who in turn, can't keep his hands off the servants. Celestine picks her way through this minefield carefully, spurning the advances of all of the men until it's convenient for her. Charting the rise of 30s Fascisim, Bunuel's film also intelligently considers political, social and sexual positions in relation to the perversity of human desires. Moreau excels as the sharp-witted servant, one of the most fascinating of all Bunuel's proto-feminist heroines.

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5.0 out of 5 starsDark, sardonic, amusing
By C. O. DeRiemer HALL OF FAME on 3 Aug. 2007
Format: DVD
What hypocrites people are, Bunuel seems to be saying in this amusing but rather sour look at French petit bourgeoise during the 1930s. Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) has come to work at the country estate of the Monteils. She's from Paris, shrewd and attractive, and a magnet for every man she meets. And what a collection there is. The woman of the house is frigid and finds more comfort in possessions and neatness than in her husband. Her husband, denied the pleasures of the bed, is constantly seeking relief from almost every female servant he can force himself on. His father in law, who lives with them, is an aging fetishist. Joseph, the gamekeeper, is a fascist. Their neighbor, Captain Mauger, is in a continuing state of frustrated rage against the Monteils. Celestine is cool and somewhat amused by it all, but ultimately decides to return to Paris. Then a young girl she met is raped and murdered in the woods. Celestine is sure she knows who the killer is and decides to stay. If the police can't find the evidence to capture him, she'll provide it one way or another.

Bunuel puts a jaundiced eye on everyone. The captain may may be convinced of the honor of the army, but he lies about his neighbor. The priest and confessor of the lady of the manor is called upon to give her marital advice, which he does by saying that twice a week is too much and she mustn't enjoy it. The father-in-law is over-civilized but with a penchant for soiled ladies' boots. Joseph raves on about order, faith and country, but believes a goose tastes better if it has been tortured before being killed.

And there is Celestine herself. She knows her power over these men but plays with them in a rather abstracted manner.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsInspect the Intestines.
By Dr. Delvis Memphistopheles TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on 30 Nov. 2013
Format: DVD
How he tortured the bourgeois sensibility as not other director. Here he lays all of its habitus for all to see as he exposes the various stains on the white sheets to full inspection. Within the 21st Century perhaps the moral cogntive dissonance no longer appears so shocking?

We have the old "father" locked into foot fetishism, intertwined with his desires that he bypasses the real world, and in true pomp manages to depart this mortal coil in his eternal quest. Then there is the "chambermaid2 herself who is a mystique, sensuality, careering into her early 30's with a full knowledge of her impact upon men she represents a siren. Upon her beauty they are all willing to shipwreck themselves, but for her, she is detached and gives it away willingly to those who seek her charms.

Joseph the main head of the servant household is a man who loves France, to the extent who wants to evacuate its kooks and spooks elsewhere. Bunuel shows how the rot set in before 1940 and the roots of the collaboration were not just being defeated but a willingness to conspire. Joseph is the rotten underbelly of France that proclaims its virtues as strengths but in reality it is the seething disorder which wants to replace its nihilism and violence as the central force and then make everyone bow to its whims. The film focuses upon this growing sense spreading throughout the film. Bunuel has made a very political film poking at the raw entrails of France exposed in the aftermath of WW2.
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5.0 out of 5 starsFrench countryside
By Dr René Codoni on 10 Mar. 2012
Format: DVD
Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) is the first of Buñuel's last seven films, and his last in a very greyish but clear black and white - to be followed by Belle de Jour (1967), The Milky Way (1969), Tristana (1970), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), The Phantom of Liberty (1974), and That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). It has no surrealist imagery nor plot twists like his other films, but draws equal fascination from the attraction of a linearly, but very tightly told story.

Le journal d'une femme de chambre is also the first screenwriting collaboration between Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière, which should last until the former's death. The two extensively reworked the novel by Octave Mirbeau, which had been given a more literal treatment in its first film adaptation, directed 1946 by Jean Renoir in Hollywood. The period is now the early 1930's, and both political right and left are practising extremist politics. Carrière, in this constellation, ably and suavely plays the part of the village priest, a thoroughly revolting character.

Jeanne Moreau, as stylish, attractive young Celestine, arrives from Paris to become chambermaid for an odd family at their country chateau. The household consists of a childless couple, and the frigid wife's elderly father. The wife runs a rigidly tidy house; her husband (Michel Piccoli) amuses himself by hunting small game and pursuing all the females within range - the previous chambermaid seems to have left pregnant and had to be "bought off."

The wife's father amuses himself with his collection of racy postcards and novels, and a closet full of women's shoes and boots, that he likes his chambermaids to model.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsUpstairs downstairs social climbing
By Film Buff on 3 Jun. 2015
Format: DVD
The first collaboration between Bunuel and Jean-Claude Carriere, this adaptation of the 1900 novel of the same name by Octave Mirbeau charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau) and her rise from chambermaid to madam of the house in a Normandy chateau. Brought forward to the 1930s Bunuel/Carriere clearly were concerned with charting the extremist politics of the time, especially in the character of the Fascist anti-Semitic driver/groundsman (Georges Geret) who Celestine comes to suspect of raping a young girl. The servants squabble below stairs while up above the childless heads of the household lead lazy lives ridden with frigid indolence and sexual perversity. The house could be interpreted as a metaphor for France, for Spain, or for the bourgeoisie in general with the decadent rot seeping down from above. Power politics are always linked with sexual politics in Bunuel and Celestine uses her body to get what she wants from the various males around her. The film lacks Bunuel's usual surrealist lurches in time and place, but it succeeds largely because of Bunuel/Carriere's cynical understanding of human nature and Moreau's excellent performance.
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