Beautiful Day, made in 1967 by Luis Bunuelis the radically progressive story of a woman named Séverine who begins to have masochistic sexual fantasies the day after her marriage. Unable to explore them with her husband, she begins working for an upscale brothel, where the lines between her fantasy life and reality begin to blur.

Buñuel delicately explores the idea of ​​sexual action and desire through the erotic surrealism of Séverine’s fantasy world, slowly able to realize the ideas in her head and liberate herself by not adhering to the reductive labels assigned to women. Buñuel paints his character as both the whore and the Madonna; trapped by her innocent appearance and the expectations placed on her as a wife, but also wanting to be seen as that sexual being that can exist within many multitudes. It’s a fascinating work that was truly ahead of its time, with a final scene that completes the box dilemma seen in Se7en.

After working in the brothel for some time, Séverine develops relationships with several of her regular clients, creating intimate partnerships with them that explore the boundaries between sex and violence, pushing her desires to extremes. However, one of the most infamous scenes in the film is the one in which Séverine is visited by a regular customer who brings with him a mysterious box. He first presents it to his colleague, who is revolted and leaves the room, but Séverine does not let herself be discouraged. It makes a strange buzzing sound, and after opening it, she accepts.

We later return to the bedroom once the deed is done, and Séverine lies on the bed next to a bloody towel and an overturned lamp. We don’t even know if she’s alive or what happened in the room. But then she turns around and smiles, and we realize that she enjoyed everything that happened between her, the man, and the contents of the mysterious box.

But the question of what was in the box is irrelevant; what is perhaps more powerful is what we both fear it to be inside the box and what we long for it to be, creating a clash between desire, disgust, repulsion and curiosity. What we predict about the contents of the box says more about ourselves than about Séverine, with Buñuel projecting our own fears and desires onto what lies inside, forcing us to reckon with the unexplored depths of our own fantasies. We want to simultaneously look and look away, both seductive and terrifying in what it might say about the parts of ourselves we hide.

Sometimes we cannot explain the inner workings of our own minds, something Buñuel highlights in a disturbing but uplifting way through Belle De Jour’s radical feminist ideology. Behind the predictions and assumptions we make about women, there are murky waters that we sometimes never see, but through the character of Séverine, we learn that by opening the box, our wildest and terrifying fantasies can come to life, and free us. from boxes of our own manufacture.

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