
User Score
5 votes
Based on a play by Pierre Wolff, about a wronged husband’s revenge on his wife and her lover, La belle de nuit is a major find, a work of uninhibited stylistic imagination that ranges from Sirkian stylization (an elaborate play of mirrors and doubles) to brutal realism (a tour of the bordellos of Marseille suggests the contemporary photographs of Brassaï).
Status
Released
Original Language
FR

A star is born in a time of both celebration and instability in this historical drama with music from director Christophe Barratier. In the spring of 1936, Paris is in a state of uncertainty; while the rise of the Third Reich in Germany worries many, a leftist union-oriented candidate, Léon Blum, has been voted into power, and organized labor is feeling its new power by standing up to management.

After the lewd and frenetic Dance of the Seven Veils, and with the solemn pledge from the very lips of Herod himself that she could have whatever her heart desires up to half his kingdom, wanton and proud young Salomé comes before her king with an unreasonable demand. Beguiled by John the Baptist, and then scorned for the sake of his god, lascivious Salomé—encouraged by her mother, the vindictive, Herodias—commands that John be executed and his head delivered on a silver platter.