“Belle de Jour” (昼顔), Original Japanese First-Release Movie Poster 1967, Catherine Deneuve / Luis Buñuel, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) S203

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical release poster, printed for the 1967 first Japanese cinema release of Luis Buñuel’s celebrated French-Italian masterpiece Belle de Jour (昼顔), starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli.

The film opened theatrically in Japan on 30 September 1967, distributed by Towa, shortly after winning the Golden Lion at the 1967 Venice International Film Festival.

Adapted by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière from Joseph Kessel’s novel, the film follows Séverine Serizy, a wealthy young Parisian wife whose outwardly conventional marriage conceals an increasingly powerful inner world of fantasy and desire.

Film background

Catherine Deneuve stars as Séverine, married to the handsome physician Pierre, played by Jean Sorel. Despite an apparently comfortable and affectionate life, Séverine is emotionally and physically distant from her husband and increasingly consumed by private fantasies.

After learning of a discreet Parisian brothel frequented by bourgeois women, she begins secretly working there during the afternoons under the name “Belle de Jour”—literally the “beauty of the day.” Her carefully divided existence becomes increasingly unstable after she attracts the obsessive attention of the young gangster Marcel.

Buñuel continually blurs the boundaries between reality, fantasy, memory and erotic imagination, refusing to tell the audience exactly where one ends and another begins. The result is one of the defining works of European cinema of the 1960s: elegant on the surface, but psychologically strange and deeply provocative underneath.

Deneuve was only in her early twenties when the film was made, and her extraordinarily controlled performance became one of the defining roles of her career. The film also stars Geneviève Page, Pierre Clémenti and Francisco Rabal.

Poster design

A magnificent example of 1960s Japanese European art-house film advertising, dominated by an enormous, almost dreamlike portrait of Catherine Deneuve.

Her face occupies virtually the entire upper-right portion of the sheet, rendered in a soft sepia / pale rose photographic treatment that gives the image an ethereal, almost unreal quality. Behind her at upper left appears the face of Jean Sorel, creating an intimate double portrait whose overlapping scale immediately establishes the film’s psychological and romantic tension.

The restrained palette is exceptionally sophisticated. Rather than using bright commercial colours, the design relies on cream, pale pink, muted brown and violet, giving the entire sheet the feeling of a fashion photograph or high-end European magazine advertisement.

Across the centre appears the beautiful Japanese title:

昼顔

rendered in expressive deep purple brush lettering, with the reading ひるがお printed discreetly alongside.

To the right, the original Japanese campaign copy reads:

「発禁の書に挑んで大胆に女体の神秘をえぐり出した巨匠ブニュエルの問題作！」

— approximately:

“Master Buñuel’s controversial work, boldly probing the mysteries of womanhood through a once-banned book!”

The wording is very much of its period: sensational enough to sell the film’s notoriety, but presented within an exceptionally elegant graphic design.

Immediately below, the poster proudly announces:

「1967年度ベネチア映画祭グランプリ受賞」

— identifying the film’s major 1967 Venice Film Festival victory, where Belle de Jour received the Golden Lion.

The lower half presents Deneuve again, now reclining on a bed in a colour photographic image, gazing directly outward with her characteristic detached intensity. A smaller interior vignette behind her provides a glimpse of the film’s more private and ambiguous world.

The cast billing includes:

カトリーヌ・ドヌーブ
ジャン・ソレル
ミシェル・ピコリ

followed by:

監督 ルイス・ブニュエル

The original TOWA / 東和 distribution logo sits prominently in the centre.

The combination of oversized portraiture, restrained typography, violet calligraphy, substantial negative space and carefully controlled colour gives this poster a remarkably modern appearance even nearly six decades later.

Film significance

Belle de Jour is widely regarded as one of Luis Buñuel’s greatest films and one of the major works of 1960s European cinema.

The film’s brilliance lies partly in its refusal to explain Séverine psychologically. Buñuel moves effortlessly between her external life and private fantasies, leaving the audience uncertain which events are literal and which exist only within her imagination.

Its examination of desire, repression, bourgeois respectability, marriage and fantasy was provocative in 1967, but the film’s cool visual style prevents it from ever becoming conventional melodrama.

The film won the Golden Lion at the 28th Venice International Film Festival, cementing both its international reputation and its place in Buñuel’s extraordinary late-career run of masterpieces.

For Catherine Deneuve, the role of Séverine became one of her most enduring screen images and helped establish the poised, enigmatic persona that would define much of her international career.

First-release significance

This is an authentic poster from the film’s original 1967 Japanese theatrical campaign, not a later revival.

Japanese B2 posters for major European films of the 1960s survive in substantially smaller numbers than later material, particularly examples retaining strong paper quality and attractive presentation.

The combination of Catherine Deneuve, Luis Buñuel, the Venice Golden Lion, Towa distribution and this exceptionally elegant Japan-only graphic treatment gives the poster particularly strong crossover appeal for collectors of classic European cinema, fashion imagery and vintage Japanese graphic design.

It is nearly 60 years old.

Condition

Excellent.

A very strong surviving example with beautifully preserved colour, excellent photographic detail and highly attractive overall presentation.

The delicate cream and sepia tones remain particularly pleasing, while the purple title retains excellent saturation. There is light age-related handling and storage wear, together with minor creasing and a few small short edge / upper-margin tears visible in the detailed photographs, all consistent with an original theatrical poster from 1967.

The reverse shows the expected light age toning and paper character but remains clean overall.

Importantly, none of these minor age-related points detract materially from the principal portraits, title or overall design, and the poster retains exceptional wall presence.

Once framed, it will display beautifully.

Please review all photographs carefully—they show the exact poster for sale.

This is not a reproduction or reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.