Sexual Repression and Pseudo-Liberation in Luis Buñuel's Viridiana (1961) and Belle de Jour (1967)
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Authors
Raemont, Arianna
Issue Date
2019-06-01
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
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Abstract
As was Buñuel’s modus operandi, his films Viridiana ( 1961) and Belle de jour ( 1967) force the public to confront and challenge the socio-political structures that existed during the 1960s in Spain and France, respectively. In the two films, the female protagonists, both forced to confront their own personal experiences of sexual trauma, each undergo what appears to be a sexual liberation of sorts. While such a reading of the films would be feasible, further examination reveals a complex and unfortunate reality: that the societal structures which govern each woman's life are inescapable and render any such liberation impossible. Using the archetypal bourgeois female of each country (the Spanish Catholic nun-to-be and the upper-class French doctor's wife) as the protagonists, Bunuel strives to unearth and expose the repressed desires inherent in the bourgeoise woman in a critique of the systems that promote such repression. This examination of these two films will analyze each work against the socio-political context of its respective country, ultimately seeking to offer an interpretation of each protagonist's behavior and how it supports the claim that each woman is a product of a repressive social environment.
Description
iv, 35 p.
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