Diary of a Chambermaid (DVD, 2001, Criterion Collection)

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Description

Luis Bunuel became the second filmmaker, after Jean Renoir, to adapt Octave Mirbeau's novel about a social-climbing chambermaid, and the upper-class home in which she works. However, Bunuel has updated the book by a quarter-century and veers from its words in order to stay true to its spirit. The story follows Celestine, who arrives at the Rabour-Monteil residence, where she encounters the family patriarch, a foot fetishist who cannot resist trying to seduce every maid; his resistant wife (who finds his "constant" demands for sex--twice a week--overwhelming); and, most important, Joseph, a fascistic and murderous man-servant who believes in maintaining France for the French... and who wants Celestine for his bride. A powerful and politically prescient film, that speaks to the present day as much as of the time in which it was made.