Diary of a Chambermaid

Director: Luis Buñuel

1964, France

Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli, Georges Géret.

 

(France, 1964) Director: Luis Buñuel. Screenplay: Claude Carrière and Buñuel, based on the novel by Octave Mirbeau. Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli, Georges Géret.

July brought the death of Jeanne Moreau, one of France’s most iconic and loved stars. Born in Paris, she triumphed in films by just about every great director: François Truffaut (Jules and Jim), Michelangelo Antonioni (La Notte), Louis Malle (The Lovers), Wim Wenders (Until the End of the World) Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Querelle), Orson Welles (Chimes At Midnight) and of course, Luis Buñuel, with whom she shared a subversive sense of humor. See her in this restoration of a gorgeous, widescreen film that skewers three of Buñuel’s favorite targets: class, hypocrisy & religion. Sent to work as a chambermaid at a country estate, Moreau is shocked by her employers, from the foot-fetishist patriarch to the overly curious priest…until she learns to manipulate her ‘betters’ to her own advantage.

“A new kind of heroine, whose glamour had no gloss, whose elegance had no airs, who burst constraints with every word she spoke, every glance she shot, every step she took.” -. Richard Brody, the New Yorker.