Belle de jour

A strange, but memorable effort from Sin City Film, BELLE DE JOUR (although my foreign language knowledge is limited, I am pretty sure that the proper phrase should be BELLE DU JOUR, but I could be wrong) is a strange, dissonant movie featuring sexy Jessica Drake in the lead role. Now, we all know that a porn actress' best talent lies (and gets laid) in her sexual prowess and carnal attitude, as opposed to her ability to emote and read lines. However, I must admit to being impressed by Ms. Drake's non-sex performance in this film, where she resists the tendency to overact, and seems right at home with all the weird situations and angst-ridden dialogue which run throughout this film. Not since Roxanne Blaze, who made a stunning one-shot appearance in JUSTINE: NOTHING TO HIDE 2, have I been so immediately attracted to such a charismatic performer (of course, I also recently reviewed Legend's TRAILER TRASH NURSES --- in which she has a starring role --- and the less said, the better).

Jessica appears throughout the whole feature, but only has sex three times on-screen. She plays a curious woman who explores her sexuality outside of her safe, conservative home lifestyle with significant other Chris Marks. While this isn't the most original porno premise in the world, it does serve as a serviceable vehicle for some imaginative and strange sexual situations. In a scene with Kyle Stone, Jessica perfectly plays the role of a reluctant hooker, sucking and fucking her john with unabashed disdain. Even though her cold and clinical behavior towards Kyle makes their session essentially passionless, Jessica looks so good that none of that really matters. She is far more responsive in the next tryst with the odd-looking Buckey J., where she performs oral sex with gusto while staring directly into the camera. But by far, the most unusual (and somewhat disturbing) scene involves a sympathetic blowjob that she delivers to her wheelchair bound hubby played by Chris Marks. Left in a vegetable state following an accident, Chris is spoon-fed baby food by Jessica, who takes a break to deep-throat and then ride him reverse cowgirl style. Afterwards, she jerks his him off into the jar of baby food, which she dumps all over his bandaged head. Then the movie ends and the credits roll (and I thought ERASERHEAD was strange...).

The remaining four sex scenes (not counting a solo masturbation scene by Jessica at the beginning of the movie) are all hot, heavy and dick-stiffening to be sure, but carry obvious elements of freakiness. Following a brief but lusty sixty-nine, Chandra Vega and Zarah Lee play with each other in a lesbian scene that is literally highlighted by a lit candle used as a dildo (which is definitely something I have never seen before, and that is saying a lot!). I enjoy watching new and novel elements in porn, but this was something that made me cringe in fear for the health and safety of the actresses involved, who thankfully managed to survive the fiery experience intact. Bespectacled and overly tattooed Angela D' Angelo gets a face and eyeglass full of splooge at the end of her straight session with James Bean, which actually qualifies as being the least unusual scene in BELLE DE JOUR. In my humble point of view, the atmospheric storyline of this movie unfortunately undercuts the sexual heat, leaving the viewer more unsettled than horny.

The letterboxed image of this apparently high definition video suits the style and content of the movie. Unlike Sin City's recent magnum opus, MILLENIUM, the widescreen picture seems to be properly framed, as opposed to being "squeezed" so as to stretch the characters into vertical distortion (i.e., where people and objects become taller and thinner than they should be). The so-called Dolby 5.1 Digital Stereo sound is good, but poses no threat to mainstream movie soundtracks. The worst part of any Sin City disc is having to sit through those gosh darn phone and cybersex ads which can only be speed searched, not skipped.

Jessica Drake fans should eat up BELLE DE JOUR for an amazing performance as well as an amazing beauty. Although I enjoyed watching it twice over, I am not sure whether I would keep BELLE DE JOUR spinning in my DVD player for repeated viewing; much of the movie is just too damn weird for me. But if I were starting a Jessica Drake collection, this movie would be the first on my shopping list.