8/10
"I guess, people don't have much fun here."
26 August 2017
DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID is a crime comedy, which on a surreal way connects a radical politics, corruption, violence, and sexual perversions. Mr. Buñuel is not making fun of some kind of tradition, he just points to the shocking background of a provincial town.

Célestine is an ambitious and attractive maid, from Paris, who comes to work for a Normandy estate. Her hosts are crazed, violent and perverse. The elderly father is a harmless old fetishist, his daughter is a frigid and meticulous woman, while her husband can't keep his hands off the servants. Here are their servants and a neighbor, retired Army officer, who shares his bed with a chubby maid. Célestine must wisely choose men who surround her...

The story is placed in the middle of the 1930s. A woman has completely disrupted relations and instincts between other protagonists in this film. It's kind of a surreal view on a provincial environment and the relation between a nationalism, petty bourgeois and religion.

Mr. Buñuel has put a strange household in the correlation with the French social structure. Characterization is very good. Completely different characters fight, in a surreal atmosphere, to achieve their ambitions. However, the epilogue is more than realistic.

Jeanne Moreau as Célestine is a smart and very capable woman. She pushes her temperament in the right direction. She has become an essential part in the lives of people and hostile environment that surrounds her. She waited patiently for the right opportunity to remove a "rotten tissue" and realize her ambition. Ms. Moreau offered very good performance.

This is, perhaps a little unclear story, but it is an effective and fun experience.
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