The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)

Highly Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Original Title: Le journal d'une femme de chambre

Director: Luis Buñuel

Writers: Luis Buñuel, Jean-Claude Carrière, Octave Mirbeau

Cinematographer: Roger Fellous

Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Georges Géret, Daniel Ivernel, Françoise Lugagne, Muni, Jean Ozenne, Michel Piccoli

The first film of Buñuel’s French period, and his first collaboration with Carrière – a masterful adaptation of Mirbeau’s 1900 novel, updating it to the 1930s, setting it against a backdrop of the rise of fascism, following a Parisian woman’s rise from chambermaid to mistress in an idyllic country town – proves to be one of the Spanish master’s more subtle films, filled with sardonic wit and composed performances, but it’s also one of his bleakest works, taking, as it does, such an all encompassing swipe at just about every level of society. Iain.Stott