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In theory, a person like myself ought to be all about “The Duke of Burgundy,” the odd new film directed by Peter Strickland . Now that’s not to say that the theory would be my own, but let’s just say I’d have to concur with it. “Burgundy,” which is British director Strickland’s third feature-length film, is, like Strickland’s prior, “Berberian Sound Studio,” a bit of a journey into the past, and a very particular past. Where “Berberian” situated itself in the world of 1970s Italian horror filmmaking, the better to pay effective homage to it while also crafting an evocative psychological thriller, “Burgundy” harks back to the heyday, such as it was, of cheap European sexploitation cinema. Cinema that tarted itself up with fake-erudite allusions to Sade and/or Sacher-Masoch, cinema that offered cheap thrills on cheaper film stock but often flirted—or in some case consummated an actual relationship—with the genuinely surreal and/or sadistic. 

So, the reason that I’d be likely to be all about “Duke” is because I’m a known admirer of a lot of such work—the films of disreputable-to-the-respectable-cinephile directors such as Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, all those guys. I've been examining their stuff since back when the only way you could get it in the U.S. was on dubious VHS transfers from merchants with names like “Video Search Of Miami” and so on. I’ve been a subscriber to “Video Watchdog” since it launched. I introduced “Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film” author Michael Weldon to current “New York” film critic David Edelstein something like thirty years ago. And so on. 

Strickland’s film is a daring, atmosphere-soaked piece of kink hypnotherapy that pays explicit homage to the films of Franco, down to the casting of former Franco regular, formidable femme Monica Swinn , in a sinister role. It’s not a horror film per se, and is in fact a little comedic in its overt content. The two main characters, Cynthia (Sidse Babbett Knudsen, looking rather more severe here than she did in “ Mifune ,” the 1999 Dogme film for which she’s best known in the States) and the younger Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna), who’s perhaps her protégé, are both engaged in heavy entomological studies and are also lovers. In their capacity in the latter department, they are seriously role-playing lovers, with Evelyn in the sub role and Cynthia doing the domming. There’s all manner of restraint, strictness, and general severity in their scenarios, but it becomes pretty clear right off the bat that their roles as lovers are not analogous to their roles in the relationship outside the role playing. That is, Evelyn has very specific demands as to how she needs to be dominated, while Cynthia is insecure and in need of direction and always scared she’ll botch things…and you also get a sense that deep down inside, she’d be much happier with just a regular lesbian relationship. 

This is where the comedic aspect of the whole thing comes in. For a lot of us who have little or no experience with the rituals or sadomasochism or any of that other kind of stuff, one question that occurs is how do people who ARE into that sort of thing manage to keep a straight face while saying “Yes, Mistress,” or whatever. The problem for Evelyn and Cynthia isn’t so much the straight face but the level of commitment, and it cuts both ways. One of Evelyn’s favored scenarios entails her being bound and spending the night in a sealed chest. Invariably when the lovers try this out, it isn’t long before Evelyn starts peeping out the couple’s safe word, “Pinastri,” which, you know, in this case means “let me out!” 

There’s something droll about all these doings, which alternate between bizarre scenes of insect knowledge delivered in a lecture hall and long-shot glimpses of a leering nosy neighbor (Swinn) in the adjoining yard to the couple’s ornate residence. And that’s pretty much the whole of the movie: there is very little of what you’d call a plot, which is also true of the movies “Burgundy” pays homage to; they often took an elliptical approach to story either by perverse design or micro-budget-triggered sloth or some combo thereof. Here it’s all very deliberate, and in keeping with the movie’s lush aural and visual surfaces; while soft focus and zooms are in no short supply here, the execution is a lot creamier, and more polished, than what the impoverished auteurs of the old days could muster. 

Why am I not crazier about the film? It certainly is, at least, a mildly seductive exercise in sound and vision; but while the visuals are always arresting, they are rarely entirely compelling. As much admiration as I had for Strickland’s vision (ably captured by cinematographer Nicholas D. Knowland), there was also something about it that struck me as rather fussy. In the Franco (and Rollin) films that Strickland so clearly admires, there were multiple elements of anarchy and/or amateurism that could even accidentally propel the movie into a realm of seemingly genuine danger. This filmmaker has things very well under control (to the extent that he’s able to stage and shoot more than one ostensibly explicit love scene without revealing any nudity, which I know sounds like I’m complaining, but honestly, that’s not it) and as such the feel of pastiche is kind of inescapable. The thing is, if you recognize the names of the filmmakers I’ve alluded to in this review, you identified yourself as its core demo before you go to the end of the first paragraph. You will see the movie whether I give it a thumbs-up or not! As for everybody else? What can I say? Proceed with care. If you’re in the mood for something different…something possibly completely different…this will fill the bill. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The Duke of Burgundy (2015)

104 minutes

Sidse Babett Knudsen as Cynthia

Chiara D'Anna as Evelyn

Monica Swinn as Lorna

Eugenia Caruso as Dr. Fraxini

Fatma Mohamed as The Carpenter

Kata Bartsch as Dr. Lurida

• Peter Strickland

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A Sensual Utopia Driven by Ritual and Release

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By A.O. Scott

• Jan. 22, 2015

Here are two somewhat contradictory things I can tell you about “ The Duke of Burgundy ,” which takes its name from a species of butterfly. It is, I’m fairly certain, quite unlike any other Sapphic S-and-M lepidoptery-themed psychological romance you have ever seen. At the same time, though, its uniqueness rests on a passionate, you might say slavish, devotion to a particular cinematic style of the past.

Peter Strickland, who seeded and tended this exquisite hothouse flower of high-toned eroticism, is unabashedly fetishistic in his love of old exploitation movies. His previous feature, “ Berberian Sound Studio ,” was at once a love letter to the Italian horror films of the 1970s and a record of its main character’s encounter with the world that spawned them. The characters in “The Duke of Burgundy” inhabit a carefully imagined alternate reality where film seems not to exist. Bicycles, manual typewriters and slide projectors are the only machines anyone needs. Still, the grainy voluptuousness of the images and the sighing languor and exquisite décor in which these characters dwell conjure an atmosphere of pseudo-aristocratic post-’60s grind-house Euro-sex.

That is not a precisely technical term. And while it’s true that “The Duke of Burgundy” is designed to appeal to (the following words should be said in a leering, silky, vaguely accented whisper) only the most sophisticated tastes, its pleasures require no special film knowledge. All that is required is a liberated imagination, a sympathetic heart, an eye for luxury and an appreciation for the morphology of winged insects.

Clip: ‘The Duke of Burgundy’

A dream sequence from the film, written and directed by peter strickland..

Filming in Hungary, amid crumbling mansions and overgrown forests — and including credits for “dresses and lingerie” and “perfume” (perfume!) — Mr. Strickland conjures a lush utopia populated entirely by women. The typical household consists of a pair of lovers who are also (or who at least assume the roles of) a gentlewoman scientist and her dutiful, sometimes purposely incompetent maid. The principal profession is entomology, though one woman seems to make a nice living designing and manufacturing bondage beds and “human toilets.” (Like much else in “The Duke of Burgundy,” these apparatuses are frequently spoken of but never seen, discretion being, so often, the better part of kink.)

Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) belong to such a ménage, and Mr. Strickland is principally concerned with the exploration of their sexual practices and domestic routines, which amount more or less to the same thing. There is the hint of a plot — involving the waning and waxing of affections and the threats posed to bliss by jealousy and boredom — but the film is less a story than a succession of subtly differentiated moods. What gives it momentum is the audience’s gradual discovery of the dynamic between the two women, a daily cycle of ritual and release.

The rules seem clear enough at first. Evelyn, dark haired and nervous, with trusting eyes and a tremor in her voice, is the servant whose eagerness to please is met with coldness, and whose slightest lapses are severely punished. Cynthia, when her research is interrupted, responds with haughty weariness or outright cruelty to Evelyn’s timid attempts at kindness. She is the boss, and Evelyn is happy to be subjected to her whims and her discipline.

Except that, as it turns out, Cynthia is herself acting out Evelyn’s instructions, which are neatly written on notecards or whispered like prompts from backstage. Cynthia finds it increasingly lonely at the top, as her complete obedience to Evelyn’s demands leaves her weary and frustrated. Evelyn, meanwhile, wants more and more, pushing herself and her partner toward extremes of subjugation and rebelling when her yearnings are unsatisfied. She persuades Cynthia to tie her up and lock her in a chest overnight and then jolts her awake with a keening safe word. (The word is “pinastri,” by the way. Go ahead and Google; all the images are safe for work, though if you’re a moth you might feel a little uncomfortable.)

There is exaggeration and a trace of sly humor in the set design, the costumes, the sometimes jarringly jaunty music and the trembling close-ups of leaves, bugs and water. There is also a sense of surrealist sexual comedy in the way Evelyn and Cynthia’s exchanges of power are performed. But in the end there is nothing especially campy about “The Duke of Burgundy,” which neither mocks its heroines nor the breathless, naughty screen tradition to which they belong. It’s a love story, and also a perversely sincere (and sincerely perverse) labor of love.

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The Duke of Burgundy Reviews

Anchored by fantastic performances from its focal women, Chiara D’Anna and Sidse Babett Knudsen, The Duke of Burgundy was one of my more effortless choices...

Full Review | Aug 1, 2023

The Duke of Burgundy is a sympathetic look at the negotiations and compromises that often need to occur in relationships after they suddenly and unexpectedly morph into something that threatens to flutter away.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

This low budget feature has enough sumptuous art direction and clever cinematic touches to make it a solid movie of the art house variety. The camera is beautifully positioned in every shot.

Full Review | May 19, 2022

The Duke of Burgundy unravels sex itself, with all its weird and messy and private neuroses, into something unexpected and strange and shockingly honest - it makes sex into love again

Full Review | Jan 10, 2022

What I really appreciated about the film was that it was most definitely not made for the male gaze, which was my no. 1 fear upon hearing it was yet another sexy lesbian film directed by a man.

Full Review | Aug 12, 2021

A mesmerising portrayal of human relationships.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 27, 2021

Strickland confirms himself as one of the leading visual stylists. The Duke of Burgundy lasts a twee bit long for my taste. I would've been perfectly content with the butterfly/moth montage sequence 2/3rd way in as the end.

Full Review | Feb 14, 2021

A small story of extremes, The Duke of Burgundy is dreamy and moving, visually and sonically vivid, and completely unlike anything you're going to see elsewhere.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 6, 2020

It's about selfishness and selflessness, power and submission and how these dynamics are endlessly reversed. And it's dressed up in so much cinematic finery, both eerie and lush, that it has a sensorial pleasure unlike any other movie before it.

Full Review | May 30, 2020

It establishes a very interesting point of view that is rarely established in a history of domination and submission, where the submissive is the one who really commands, and the dominant is the one that obeys. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 27, 2019

Strickland is more interested in sex as power, and by taking men completely out of the equation, he delivers something almost unheard of in modern cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 7, 2019

The Duke of Burgundy has an unmistakable scent, look, and feel that's utterly unique and unclassifiable -- a rare cinematic breed of uncommon origin.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 18, 2019

Strickland penetrates much deeper into the psyches of his characters in The Duke of Burgundy, finding the erotic in the banal, the banal in the erotic, and infinity and insanity between a lover's knees.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 17, 2019

He presents a unique, fairy tale-like setting, one that feels timeless, and presents something relatable through it.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jun 7, 2019

There's a state beyond mere overindulgence, and Strickland's found it.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 25, 2019

Like the nocturnal reveries of Jean Cocteau, The Duke of Burgundy feels out of time, embalmed like a dream; perhaps it's a self-contained prism though which we detect our own part in the games of love.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 4, 2019

THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is like a lucid dream that is simultaneously clear and complex.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Dec 8, 2018

Writer and director Peter Strickland certainly had a vision for The Duke of Burgundy, his keen eye towards building tension and holding suspense is successfully put to use here.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2018

As psychologically and emotionally overwhelming as it is eccentric. We come to understand that the repetition is what the characters crave, the solidification and endless proof of their desire and need for one another.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2018

Beautiful, sexy, funny and tragic, with its all-women cast and sole focus on female sexuality it is clear evidence that mainstream cinema's aversion to strong women as the centre of a film is hackneyed, dull, and simply false.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 25, 2018

Film Review: ‘The Duke of Burgundy’

British director Peter Strickland puts a waning S&M love affair under the microscope in his knowing valentine to '60s and '70s Euro erotica pics.

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

• Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
• Film Review: ‘The Runner’ 9 years ago
• Film Review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ 9 years ago

After paying elaborate tribute to Italian giallo horror films in his 2012 “Berberian Sound Studio,” British director Peter Strickland applies much the same formula to the high-toned Euro sexploitation pics of the 1960s and ‘70s in “The Duke of Burgundy,” here with even more striking, singular results. An act of cinephilic homage that transcends pastiche to become its own uniquely sensuous cinematic object, Strickland’s densely layered, slyly funny portrayal of the sadomasochistic affair between two lesbian entomologists tips its hats to such masters of costumed erotica as Jess Franco, Tinto Brass and Jean Rollin, without ever cheapening its strange but affecting love story. A cult item to be sure, “Duke” could prove a canny arthouse counter-offensive to “50 Shades of Grey” in niche theatrical play.

Every day, the two women enact their elaborate fantasy of domination and submission. Evelyn (“Berberian” star Chiara D’Anna), the younger, plays the part of a soft-spoken maid with wide green eyes and porcelain cheekbones. Cynthia (Danish actress Sidse Babett Knudsen) is the middle-aged mistress of the house, for whom nothing Evelyn does is ever quite right, and who doles out kinky, humiliating punishments commensurate to each violation. An errant pair of Cynthia’s panties, found separated from the rest of the (hand-washed) laundry, is sure to result in a special scolding behind a closed bathroom door, where that sound of trickling water you hear isn’t emanating from a tap.

Although Evelyn initially appears to be the submissive underling here, it’s soon revealed that she’s actually the puppet master, literally scripting the action in advance (rather like a filmmaker) on cards she leaves scattered about the house. The instructions are obsessively detailed down to the precise amount of time Cynthia should leave her locked inside an old wooden trunk (where she always seems to end up) and at what point in the ritual she should do something “surprising” (not during the first hour, but not during the last hour either). In lieu of “uncle,” the safe word here, should things ever get too out of hand, is “pinastri,” Latin for a species of moth.

We don’t know, and never learn, exactly how long these theatrics have been going on — nor, for that matter, exactly when and where “The Duke of Burgundy” is even taking place. (“Somewhere, sometime in Europe” is all the press kit allows, though the costumes and the presence of electric lights suggest the Victorian era. The actual shooting was done in Hungary, where Strickland resides.) But we do know from relatively early in Strickland’s film that, like so many long-term relationships, this one has reached the point where that old piss-in-my-mouth-and-lock-me-in-a-box routine isn’t quite the turn-on that perhaps it once was. Put simply, the thrill is gone.

It’s one of the seductive strengths of “The Duke of Burgundy” that, for all its surface provocation, the movie’s central relationship emerges as a surprisingly tender romance between two people who each fear losing the other, even as they acknowledge that the initial spark of passion has grown fainter over time. That’s largely a credit to the performances of D’Anna and Knudsen, who play things straight (so to speak), and who communicate volumes about their characters through the subtlest variations on their endlessly repeated scene — a structure that gives the movie a glancing connection with Jacques Rivette’s classic “Celine and Julie Go Boating.” And while not all audiences may relate to this particular couple’s efforts at renewal (including, in perhaps the most memorable scene, a consultation with a custom fetish-bed carpenter), the underlying emotions are nevertheless universal.

The women of “The Duke of Burgundy” rarely set aside their role playing, except to attend lectures at some sort of insect-appreciation society whose membership (like the cast of Strickland’s film) is entirely female. (Look closely for a couple of mannequins impishly inserted among the crowd.) Like the sound recordist capturing endless variations on a scream in “Berberian Sound Studio,” these society ladies listen to field recordings of butterfly sounds — actual archival ones, including that of the titular Duke, indexed at length in the end credits — as if they were hearing the most rare and beautiful music in the world. And then there are Evelyn and Cynthia themselves, each in her own way an elegant specimen held down by pins. Which, one could argue, makes them perfect for each other.

Sound, we’re told, is one of the most important factors in insect classification, and it’s similarly central to Strickland’s sense of cinema (something that was already evident in his 2009 debut, “Katalin Varga”). The clarity of the recording in “The Duke of Burgundy” is hyper-real, to the point that every squeak of a rusty bicycle chain, every rustle of a cotton sheet, and every bead of water dripping from that hand-washed laundry echoes through the surround speakers like a thunderclap. It’s as if sound carries its own erotic quality for Strickland, and it’s how he pulls the audience deeply into his movies’ very particular, peculiar worlds.

Knowing that so much of desire lies in suggestion and anticipation, Strickland keeps “Duke’s” most explicit acts tastefully offscreen. For a film that is in so many respects a proudly analog affair, it comes as a surprise to learn that d.p. Nic Knowland’s dense, celluloid-like widescreen lensing was achieved digitally. Screen credits include what are surely two firsts: a “perfumes by” card, and a “human toilet consultant.”

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Vanguard), Sept. 11, 2014. (Also in London, Sitges film festivals.) Running time: 105 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) An IFC Films (in U.S.) release of a Film4 and BFI presentation of a Rook Films production. (International sales: Protagonist Pictures, London.) Produced by Andy Starke. Executive Producers, Lizzie Francke, Anna Higgs, Amy Jump, Ildiko Kemeny, Ben Wheatley.
• Crew: Directed, written by Peter Strickland. Camera (color, widescreen, HD), Nic Knowland; editor, Matyas Fekete; music, Cat’s Eyes; production designer, Pater Sparrow; art director, Renato Cseh; set decorator, Zsuzsanna  Mihalek; costume designer, Andrea Flesch; sound, Rob Entwistle; visual effects supervisor, Phil Dobree; visual effects producer, Jessica Norton; visual effects, Jellyfish Pictures; special effects supervisor, Balazs Barna; hair and makeup, Candy Alderson; line producer, Gareth Jones; assistant director, Judit Soltez; second unit camera, Mark Gyori, Gergo Somogyvari, Matyas Erdely; casting, Shaheen Baig.
• With: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna, Eugenia Caruso, Zita Kraszko, Monica Swinn, Eszter Tompa, Fatma Mohamed.

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‘The Duke of Burgundy’ movie review: A stylish, provocative erotic fantasy

" The Duke of Burgundy " is a cunning slice of counter- programming, arriving just in time to give fans of " Fifty Shades of Grey " a sly, provocative amuse bouche before the far more hyped main course.

In this lush, artfully constructed erotic fantasy, writer-director Peter Strickland both engages the images and ideas of soft-core dominance-and-submission narratives while also questioning them. Chiara D’Anna plays Evelyn, a young woman who works for an accomplished entomologist named Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen). Moments after Evelyn arrives at the door of Cynthia’s sumptuously appointed mansion, she’s being ordered to scrub the floors, polish her mistress’s boots and launder a pile of lacy unmentionables. If she misses a spot — and, oh yes, she always misses a spot — punishment ensues in the form of a fetishistic indignity that Strickland stages discreetly behind a frosted glass door.

With its carefully curated aesthetic of faded elegance and the marked absence of such modern conveniences as cars, computers and men, “The Duke of Burgundy” seems to transpire in a time out of mind, or perhaps in one of its heroine’s most practiced, aestheticzed daydreams (an effect underscored by Cat’s Eyes’ whispery score and soundtrack).

The filmmaker is in thrall, not just to the ritual, repetition and heightened theatricality of his subject matter, but to generations of filmmakers who have gone before him, from Jess Franco to John Frankenheimer and Stan Brakhage. With so many references to juggle, “The Duke of Burgundy” sometimes evinces a belabored “project” rather than a fully inhabited story: The soft- focus double exposures and jump-cut images of moths and butterflies look fetching, to be sure, but they quickly wear out their welcome.

Still, “The Duke of Burgundy” prettily plumbs the thin lines between death and desire, power and trust. And the two lead actresses make what could have been a confoundingly cryptic exercise a believable and even tender love story, even within its severely scripted contours. Knudsen especially brings vulnerability and sympathetic seriousness to her role as someone who’s in charge, until maybe she’s not.

As a meticulously composed piece of contemporary gothic, “The Duke of Burgundy” is exquisite to look at, but it succeeds best as a human drama, and a searching investigation of how to ask for what you want — and maybe even getting it in the end.

Unrated. At West End Cinema. Contains suggestive sexuality and adult themes. 104 minutes.

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Review: ‘The Duke of Burgundy’ a mesmerizing sexual thriller

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As he demonstrated in “Berberian Sound Studio,” Peter Strickland is a talented sculptor of cinematic mood and a serious fan of vintage European exploitation flicks. “The Duke of Burgundy,” his Sapphic tale of domination and submission, is nothing if not a mood piece, but amid its atmospherics and winking asides, it’s also a fascinating portrait of a relationship.

Actresses Chiara D’Anna and Sidse Babett Knudsen make a compelling duo. The latter, best known to American audiences for her lead role in the Danish series “Borgen,” delivers a knockout performance in her first English-language feature.

She plays the statuesque entomologist Cynthia, who lives in an Old World manse amid a lush countryside somewhere on the Continent. (The film was shot in Hungary.) The unspecified time period feels like a dream state, circa 1960. Her study brims with artfully pinned specimens, and she lectures on insects at an institute where everyone is female, including several mannequins in the audience — the movie’s most overt touch of the surreal.

Venturing over the top only in a nightmare sequence, Strickland builds a sensual ambience through inventive visuals, a rich soundtrack that includes field recordings of crickets, and no nudity but plenty of elegant lingerie.

Repetition proves essential. A scenario involving Cynthia and her “maid,” Evelyn (D’Anna), unfolds in increasingly revealing variations. Evelyn’s apparent victimization turns out to be something else entirely: With her need for particular forms of punishment, the younger woman calls the shots. The most shocking bits are unseen but unambiguous.

Knudsen is mesmerizing as the reluctant sadist, conveying everything from reproach to heartache. For all its S&M specificity — down to earth and sometimes comical — the movie holds its beveled mirrors up to the role-play, ritual and compromise in all love relationships.

“The Duke of Burgundy.”

No MPAA rating.

Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

Playing: Landmark’s Nuart, West Los Angeles.

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‘The Duke of Burgundy’ (2015) Movie Review

By Brad Brevet

What is in a name? What’s in a word? What does it mean when a director populates a scene with extras, two of which just happen to be dressed up mannequins? Writer/director Peter Strickland ‘s The Duke of Burgundy requires you to ask such questions, even if the answer is… “because”.

To begin, the story centers on Cynthia ( Sidse Babett Knudsen ), a woman who studies butterflies and has developed a sadomasochistic relationship with Evelyn ( Chiara D’Anna ), at Evelyn’s request. A sort of dramatic tension and almost horror comes as the limits of Cynthia’s love and willingness to do, and go along with, Evelyn’s requests are tested. It’s a story that’s equally romantic as it is unsettling and doesn’t test the audience’s limits with its sexual exploration as much as it isn’t afraid to go down some rather disturbing alleys for those of us that wouldn’t dare go there. I can say more, and I will, however… to read much more may be to spoil the experience for the uninitiated if these opening sentences haven’t done so already.

Let’s begin with the film’s title, a duke is typically known as a male ruler of a small European state, or a male of noble heredity. But this film centers on two women and, in fact, features no men at all. Well, the Duke of Burgundy is actually a European butterfly and the lesbian couple’s safe word used throughout the film, “pinastri”, is a reference to the Sphinx pinastri moth. Is there anything to this or is it simply a use of words and sly metaphors meant to throw us off balance, elevating the slightly unsettling nature of Strickland’s narrative?

I lean more toward the latter, even in the case of the mannequins I mentioned before, which are situated in a conference room as butterfly experts, including Cynthia, offer up their lepidoptera lectures. I’ve read people saying it adds to the sense of the film’s artificiality, or at least the artificial nature of Cynthia and Evelyn’s relationship, but I’m not buying that. I didn’t find anything necessarily artificial about their relationship, unless the belief that Cynthia doing things she may not be comfortable with to satisfy Evelyn’s sexual desires to be artificial… but I don’t. These are clearly acts of love, and as much as they are testing Cynthia’s resolve. The relationship’s so-called artificiality, in this case, has become a romantic reality.

You could take the moth and butterfly metaphors to more simple territory, such as Evelyn’s desire to be locked in a box at night, or cocooned if you will. Or Cynthia’s eventual shedding of the uncomfortable bustiers and lingerie Evelyn buys for as another metaphor, but in the grand scheme of things I think it’s merely an element of Strickland’s controlled “madness” in a movie that is so exquisitely designed, acted and directed you can’t take your eyes off it.

Cynthia’s house can best be described as a stone mansion, draped in lush foliage. The golden trees below blow in the wind, sheltering a babbling stream beneath their canopy. Inside, sunlight beams through the windows to capture a setting almost frozen in time. Candles light the way as Strickland uses mirrors and glass to equally hide and show us the deeds that take place within. Equally stunning locations, such as a winding, amber staircase leading to the library and a white bench set on a hillside outside Cynthia’s stately home, set the mood as much as they please the eye.

The camera seems to gently caress the soapy, bursting bubbles in the wash bin as Evelyn cleans Cynthia’s unmentionables before hanging them to dry, gently dripping on the line as she seeks her lover’s “approval”, knowing full well she won’t be getting it. If ever there was a film that could exhibit the gleam in one character’s eye at the mention of a “human toilet” and not cause the audience to either gag or laugh in response has clearly achieved its goal and that is The Duke of Burgundy .

Knudsen and D’Anna are wonderful, both strong and weak in their portrayals of Cynthia and Evelyn respectively. And the way Strickland reveals their motives, wants and desires allows the audience to play along, always believing there is something more to these characters than what we’re initially given.

The Duke of Burgundy could have gone in so many directions after its midway point and Strickland isn’t shy of reminding us the control he has over the narrative and his characters. In many ways he holds a kinship with Evelyn in that she is as much Cynthia’s director as he is to his characters, though he is the ultimate dominant in this relationship. He holds the power over what happens with these two and a dream sequence late in the picture reminds of this fact, playing out a grisly scenario everyone will consider at least once over the course of the film’s running time.

I have yet to Strickland’s highly acclaimed Berberian Sound Studio , but after witnessing his directorial control over this feature, which could have gone wildly wrong, his other films become immediate must sees as does whatever else he has up his sleeve in the future.

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THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY: A Truly Unique Relationship Drama

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Alistair is a 25 year old writer based in Cambridge.…

The Duke of Burgundy is that rare thing that almost every movie promises, yet fails to deliver: it is something that you’ve never seen before. It manages to say something universal about the politics and gender roles of relationships using the guise of lesbian sadomasochism, a subject I assume will be entirely alien to most viewers. Most astonishingly, it also manages to depict the topic sensitively, without ever going graphic in detail or over-sensationalising it.

The Duke of Burgundy is remarkable in how much it under-sensationalises, presenting what could amount to (in a lesser filmmaker’s hands) borderline fetish-porn into something borderline mundane; it isn’t the sex that’s important, but rather how the assertion for dominance so inherent in the pair’s bedroom fantasies manifests itself in their relationship and how it threatens their ability to stay together as a happy unit. Even when it presents scenarios that more normally appear as conversation topics in a men’s locker room, it still manages to be frank and unashamed of its sexuality, without ever needing to justify it to an audience. It isn’t a stretch of the imagination to call this one of the most mature and even-handed movies ever made about sex.

A relationship drama like no other

The movie opens with Evelyn ( Chiara D’Anna ), going to a house of a woman named Cynthia ( Sidse Babbett Knudsen ), who appears to employ her as her house maid. She demands that Evelyn do tasks like hand-wash all her clothes and dust all the surfaces, punishing her with sexual humiliation if she does anything wrong. Evelyn and Cynthia are in fact a couple, and one that appears to have a happy relationship to casual onlookers. But both are miserable due to the sadomasochistic inclinations of their relationship; Cynthia doesn’t like that she has to abuse her lover, whilst Evelyn doesn’t like Cynthia’s reluctance to “punish” her to the full extent that she wants. Taking that synopsis at face-value doesn’t do the film justice – it manages to take overtly sexual scenarios and turn them into relationship problems that any couple in the audience can relate to.

Director Peter Strickland is best known for his previous feature  Berberian Sound Studio . That movie was equally critically acclaimed, but left me feeling cold ; it was a tribute to the Italian “giallo” slasher movies of the 70’s, yet abstracted the horror to such a point that it felt like the work of a film studies student trying to find the artistic merit in movies that register as nothing more than simple pleasures to begin with.

There is a moment in The Duke of Burgundy , a hyper-kinetic sequence involving butterflies, where it feels like he’s going to abstract the narrative in the same way, ruining the atmosphere he had created. Thankfully, that never full materialises – the movie is another genre tribute (this time to 70’s softcore Euro-porn), but manages to distance itself from the lurid hallmarks of its influences by actually taking the subject seriously. Strickland is a director who is at his best when he doesn’t subvert genre expectations, as his movies are far more interesting when staying as stylistically close to his influences as possible.

The Duke of Burgundy  also manages to better Strickland ‘s previous feature by never acting like it’s above the genre, instead working within the confines of it in order to make something thought-provoking out of what is unquestionably cinematic trash. Strickland never wants to titilate, even if this movie is undeniably the work of a director who is a fan of trashy 70’s porn. The scenarios may come straight from the top-shelf, but he is more interested in what happens to the characters after sex.

Here is a director with an inquisitive mind, one who seems to have spent too much time wondering what the relationships between a couple in a porn film would be like once the cameras have stopped rolling. Would they have a relationship as normal as everybody else, or would they be too defined by their sexual impulses to make it work? The fact that a movie about such a topic can play out like a conventional relationship drama is also due to the outstanding lead performance from Sidse Babett Knudsen .

Great performances make this weirdly relatable

In any other movie about S&M, we are always told that it is the dominant who holds the power; here, Babett Knudsen plays the role of Cynthia, a woman who is quietly breaking down from being forced into the dominating role by her partner Evelyn ( Chiara D’Anna ), when all she wants to do is express her love for her in conventional ways. She is essentially the audience surrogate; the movie never suggests that she actually finds the sex acts she has to perform erotic, just that she reluctantly performs them in order to maintain her relationship. Substitute the bizarre fetishes depicted here for more conventional relationship quabbles, from visiting your partner’s friends who you don’t get along with to watching the terrible TV shows they love, and it helps to make this one of the more insightful movies about the things people in relationships reluctantly do to ensure the spark remains well and truly alive.

In S&M themed movies, the man is always in the dominant position, which almost always leads to regressive gender politics when shown on-screen. Making this a relationship between two women is a masterstroke, even if the flirtations with lesbianism make it a clear successor to the aforementioned 70’s porn films. Paradoxically, it is also one of the elements that help make it most relatable, as sexual relationships between women are not stereotypically associated with the assertion for “power” that often defines sexual relationships for both straight and gay male couples.

This is what makes The Duke of Burgundy  the most even-handed portrayal of S&M I’ve seen, as it could easily be interpreted that the person who holds the power in the relationship onscreen changes on a scene-by-scene basis. This may be a movie about physical engagement, but the complex nature of maintaining a happy relationship built around a mutual desire for “punishment” means the movie engages emotionally too. It’s a situation few viewers will be able to relate to, yet with two fantastic lead performances you can’t help but empathise with what is an unquestionably unrealistic scenario.

Despite being set in an alternate universe where men don’t appear to exist, The Duke of Burgundy manages to have surprising emotional resonance beneath the stylistic artifice when it comes to depicting the sacrifices needed to be made to maintain a relationship. Peter Strickland may be a director more preoccupied with accurately capturing the style of cinema’s most disreputable genres (one of the first opening credits is for the lingerie designer, which makes you question the artistic validity of the movie you are about to watch), but that doesn’t mean he goes for style over substance. With The Duke of Burgundy he has created a movie about a topic that would otherwise prove laughable; were he not to take it seriously, he would expose the emotional wounds that are barely concealed underneath.

Have you seen the Duke of Burgundy and did you think it worked as a relationship drama?

The Duke of Burgundy was released earlier this year in the UK and US, but all international release dates can be found here .

(top image source: Artificial Eye)

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Alistair is a 25 year old writer based in Cambridge. He has been writing about film since the start of 2014, and in addition to Film Inquiry, regularly contributes to Gay Essential and The Digital Fix, with additional bylines in Film Stories, the BFI and Vague Visages. Because of his work for Film Inquiry, he is a recognised member of GALECA, the Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics' Association.

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Forget 'Fifty Shades' — this indie film is way sexier

If you thought " Fifty Shades Of Grey " was the first film of the year to explore an unconventional sexual relationship, you would be wrong. 

The plot of "The Duke of Burgundy" reads like a more gender-liberal take on "Fifty Shades" — it traces the sadomasochistic relationship between the dominant Cynthia and her submissive Evelyn. It's refreshing to see a film of this ilk starring two women, because most films depicting sexual fantasy tend to go a more traditional route.

Unlike "Shades," which takes nearly an hour to get to the nitty-gritty, "Burgundy" features its characters' extreme tastes right from the start and doesn't let up until the end credits roll. 

The relationship on screen in "Burgundy" parallels that in "Fifty Shades" in only the most basic ways. Both films feature kinky sex, safe words, and one partner questioning the sexual decisions she has made.

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In "Fifty Shades," billionaire Christian Grey is all about control — this is his world, and we're just living in it. There's a more methodical yet unexplained air surrounding Cynthia and her sexual deviancy that is explored during the sequences outside of the bedroom. There's a lot bubbling beneath the psychological surface here, which is something I can't say about "Fifty Shades" with a straight face.

"Burgundy's" visual style is its greatest asset, and there's plenty of meaning to be derived from the juxtaposition of images on screen. The "plot" is minimal in that the movie is about their relationship and nothing more, but writer/director Peter Strickland takes this material and runs with it, weaving a thought-provoking, engaging mind game in the process.

The kinks in "Burgundy" are far more bizarre than the  blasé whips, belts, and ropes in "Shades." 

Strickland has a unique flair for visuals that somehow renders the abnormal perfectly prim and proper. The audience should be gasping aloud when Evelyn enters a bathroom for a very specific "shower" scene, but it's so artfully shot and tastefully presented that the intimate moment feels completely healthy and normal in context. It's an impressive (and rare) feat for a director to command the space well enough to make an audience enjoy something completely out of their comfort zone.

By comparison, "Fifty Shades" is far more on the nose and lacks any and every subtlety that "Burgundy" employs. The characters speak in stiff, unnatural quips that garnered more chuckles from the audience than genuine intrigue. The audience laughed plenty during "Burgundy," but only when it was appropriate and always "with" it, never "at" it. 

"The Duke Of Burgundy" takes domineering control over the viewer right away, while "Fifty Shades" just flounders, lying limp, submitting to the horrid exchanges found in the book with no intention of elevating it.

"The Duke of Burgundy" is now playing in select cities and available on VOD  via  cable providers. You can also pre-order the film on iTunes .

Watch the trailer:  

Watch: Learn what all the fuss is about — here's the regular guy's guide to 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

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The Duke of Burgundy

• 4 out of 5 stars
• Recommended

Time Out says

British filmmaker Peter Strickland (‘Berberian Sound Studio’) is a star student of ’70s Eurotrash: he loves screamy Italian B-movies and the kind of soft-focus lesbian cuddling that used to titillate weirdos when we still had sex cinemas. His absorbing latest, ‘The Duke of Burgundy’, is an S&M passion play between two gorgeous women, Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen, the Danish PM in ‘Borgen’) and Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna). It’s set in a village in an unnamed part of Europe and shot in the lushly naughty style made popular by a series of 1960s and ’70s movies. On the surface, it’s kinky. Yet the longer you watch these two enact their seductions – their repeated game has them taking on roles of a persecuted housekeeper (Evelyn) and a haughty homeowner (Cynthia) – the more you realise they’ve reached the end of the affair. One of them starts showing up in the drawing room of their house wearing dowdy pyjamas instead of lingerie. They bicker, even as they head to the bathroom to perform an indignity too awful to describe here. There’s something depressing about Strickland’s idea of taking the most out-there genre and filling it with middle-age anxieties. ‘The Duke of Burgundy’ isn’t for fans of softcore naughtiness, so much as their parents (even though there’s an experimental streak to the film, with hallucinatory scenes involving butterflies). He’s sensitive to the creep of cooling passion; the film has a traditional appeal wholly separate from its strange surface.

Release Details

• Release date: Friday 20 February 2015
• Duration: 104 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Peter Strickland
• Screenwriter: Peter Strickland
• Sidse Babett Knudsen
• Chiara D'Anna
• Monica Swinn

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The Duke Of Burgundy Review

Imagine someone gives you a birthday present neatly wrapped in a large box that you tear open. You peer inside only to find another equally gorgeous box sealed with a vibrant red bow. Untie the bow and inside that box you get an even smaller more stunning box. “Something good has to be coming,” you think to yourself. The suspense kills you until the last box is open and you discover it’s hollow and completely empty.

The Duke of Burgundy is analogous to this box. It’s visually stunning, immediately intriguing, and memorably stylized, but look past its superficial qualities and it is apparent that the would-be profundity of ambiguous symbols, enigmatic characters and loopy storytelling are nothing more than pretensions. This is a simple story that disguises its lack of depth with grand aesthetic embellishments and reoccurring visual motifs. What does that big black box mean? What do the butterflies that are displayed in the house symbolize? Honestly, I don’t know. It all gives an appearance of profundity, but it’s lacking in real substance.

This is a film entirely about meaningless erotic passion, yet there is never a glimpse of nudity. The sexual encounters are intensely implied through subtle details like a clenched fist around bed sheets, humping out of focus figures, and glimpses of body positioning through mirrors. The writer-director, Peter Strickland ( Berberian Sound Studio ), is consciously and reflexively making a film that on the surface seems like softcore porn built on the fantasy of one of the protagonists, but it is actually exploring the emptiness of the male (and female) gaze.

Strickland wants to show the spectator that their willingness to see the full monty is as empty as the twisted fantasy that the characters are engaged in. Theoretically, this is an intriguing idea that Ernst Lubitsch would drool over, but practically, the couple in the story never develop past being something to be looked at or laughed at (there is a streak of dark comedy that breaks through in some of the odder moments, including a urination fetish, that will have you cringing if you’re not already giggling.).

The plot (or lack thereof) is weird but distinct. The characters, however, couldn’t be flatter or more one-dimensional. This may be the point – to make a hollow film about a hollow act- but it hardly makes for a satisfying film experience.

Evelyn is a well-dressed maid for a considerably wealthy scientist, Cynthia, who studies butterflies. At first, Cynthia seems ruthless towards Evelyn as she refuses to allow her to sit down when she enters the home. Moreover, Evelyn spends her time cleaning all day despite the extravagant interiors seeming already spotless. Yet, Cynthia finds little flaws in her work and concludes that she needs to be “punished,” which really means to engage in acts of bondage and sadomasochism. As the events repeat with varying nuances and changes in perspective, it becomes evident that the pair are lovers and that many of the scenarios between them are scripted to satisfy Evelyn’s fetishistic desires. Neither woman seems to enjoy the sex. Cynthia does the wacko acts out of a sense of obligation, but nothing is extreme enough to please Evelyn.

These two women seem to inhabit a timeless world inside a condensed space of an elaborately decorated home in a secluded European town. When the couple leave the grounds of the house, the only other setting they go to is a convention centre with a Victorian look where female intellectuals lecture on different species of butterflies. Strickland has made a closed world that is deliberately opaque and frustrating to pin down to a specific time or place. Similarly, the two women have no backstory despite their evident past trauma.

The storytelling that circles around the same encounters with slight variations attempts to give us a glimpse into their humanity through subtle visual storytelling and not expository dialogue. Tears, a nightgown instead of lingerie, a slight hesitation in speech: these nuances between nearly identical scenes hint at a deep hurt that runs through the protagonists without digging into the nitty gritty of their psyche, which is essential to showing the contrast between the hollowness of the women’s sexual fantasy and the profound suffering that is motivating their sex lives. The issue is that Strickland doesn’t find poignancy in the stiff, sexualized objects that are the characters even after we understand the subtext of their relationship.

This is mostly because the film’s scope is restricting and narrow. Strickland refuses to universalize the women’s psychological bondage or dig deep enough into their hurts to make us care about such an absurd, over-the-top relationship. How many people do you know that are engaged in lesbian relationships driven by masochism?  It wouldn’t be so disappointing if the film didn’t hint at profundity through reoccurring visual motifs like a hand carved black box with a gold key-hole, or intensely surreal visuals of flocks of butterflies. Without any richer insights into either the characters’ relationship or the diagetic world, though, these cool images end up being nothing more than pretensions.

In interviews, the director insists that his intention was to depict the “hows” of Evelyn and Cynthia’s relationship not the “whys.” “Hows” by themselves can work for stylistic endeavours, but the “whys” are what derive pathos. Strickland shows us this erotic relationship through meticulous chiaroscuro lighting and visually arresting cinematography, but he never makes us care about any of it.

There is something intensely aggravating about something that promises to payoff but only reveals itself to be a decadent fantasy. By the end, you’ll be just as mad at The Duke of Burgundy as a person that gives you an empty present.

The Duke Of Burgundy Review

20 Feb 2015

101 minutes

Duke Of Burgundy, The

Writer-director Peter Strickland (Katalin Varga, Berberian Sound Studio) creates enclosed worlds with each of his films. Typically he draws on 1970s European art and exploitation cinema to furnish his alternative universes, experimenting with visual and aural obsessions. The Duke Of Burgundy delivers a deadpan comedy of manners which is at once a surprisingly affecting study in the minutiae of a relationship both partners struggle to make work and a stylish essay in the wilfully perverse.

The Duke Of Burgundy takes place in lush, green countryside (Romania) and an exquisite yet sinister mansion at some nebulous moment in the past. It’s a world in which all men are absent or perhaps never existed (the eponymous duke is a butterfly) and all women seem to be in intricate yet absurd sado-masochist relationships.

Discreet professionals supply elaborate props like beds with concealed compartments the submissive can be locked in overnight while their mistress sleeps on top of them, and a ‘human toilet’ is a sought-after birthday present. Perhaps mercifully, we hear one of those arrangements in use but don’t see it on screen — indeed, this is very tactful and non-exploitative for a film that breaks down to 75 per cent ritualised sex scenarios and 25 per cent illustrated lepidoptery lectures.

There are obvious parallels between the life cycle of butterflies and the progress of the central relationship but Strickland also uses it to make this world stranger. Here, lepidoptery is such a generally accepted interest that lectures about the wing patterns of rare butterflies draw standing room-only crowds.

Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara d’Anna are remarkable, especially since they are required to demonstrate the changes in their relationship by minute differences in performance as they go over and over a basic script — Knudsen’s final near-breakdown as she just can’t keep up the cruelty is as accomplished a piece of screen acting as you’ll see this year.

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

February 18, 2015 by Robert W Monk

The Duke of Burgundy, 2014.

Directed by Peter Strickland. Starring Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna, Fatma Mohamed, Eugenia Caruso and Monica Swinn.

SYNOPSIS : Two lovers engage in a ritualistic passage of behaviour that brings one close to obsession and one looking for a way out…

Peter Strickland is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most exceptional filmmakers currently around. His previous two works Katalin Varga and Berberian Sound Studio  took on vastly different subject areas and genre tropes and succeeded in bringing an individual flair and passion for the dreamlike straight to the screen.

The first was a revenge thriller set in the heartland of Romania and the other a psychological unpicking of an individual located within a tribute to the creation of the giallo films of Italian cinema. Together, these two striking films share a platform of wilful artistry and a capability to constantly impress and ask serious questions of the audience.

The Duke of Burgundy once again shows off Strickland’s uncanny ability to go beyond the expected. Taking its starting point in the soft-focus daze of  the world of art-house pornographic features and a mixing of the kind of vantage points favoured in Hammer and Amicus productions of the 60’s and 70’s, it’s clear right from the opening sequence that we’re in for a unique experience.

And it could well be a surprising experience for many. For despite cursory appearances, this is not really a film about sex, porn or exploitation at all.

In fact, the detailing of Cynthia (Babett Knudsen) and Evelyn’s (D’Anna) ailing relationship is more concerned with the internal dynamics than the outward displays of S and M adventurism. Sex scenes are either dryly humorous or tender shows of affection and the main thing that comes across in the dramatic telling of the relationship is how honestly it is portrayed.

Most of the truly graphic stuff is shown off screen aided by a few choice (erm running waterworks, anyone?) sound effects. The real joy of the film is in the little shows of amusing weirdness, crossing between a form of dark humour and the surreal. From Evelyn’s lit up eyes at the mention of a ‘human toilet’, to the phantasmagoric world seemingly located between Cynthia’s thighs, this is a dramatic world that we are being admitted to without any rudimentary guidebook.

Focusing on the two lovers’ attempts to keep their spark of passion alive through sex-play and dominant and submissive role play, The Duke of Burgundy  is a film that does not explain, hint or evaluate. It allows the experience of these two women to wander across the screen without traditional signposts or signifiers. As with the emotional life of everyone, there is no traditional beginning or end, just a series of scenes and memories from a life that gets played out in various different ways.

The setting for these two lives largely switches between Cynthia’s house – or is it Evelyn’s? – of fading glamour deep in some rural forest, and an unnamed institution hosting lectures on the study of butterflies. Cynthia is an amateur lepidopterist – that’s a butterfly expert to you and me – who regularly attends the lectures. Amongst the rows of seats of people listening to the lectures there are on closer inspection a couple of motionless dummies. What Strickland intends with this is anyone’s guess, but it lends an air of the fantastic to the whole.

Strickland clearly understands more than most that it is what is going on just outside the scene that brings power and depth to the whole picture. When Cynthia and Evelyn argue about Evelyn’s possible infidelity with a local woman it is clear that there is a whole other series of fragments which we have not been allowed into. When you add the fact that more or less everything can be part of a game, you are left with the ambiguities and mysteries of real life. The alternately melancholic and romantic arrangements and compositions provided by the musical duo Cat’s Eyes beautifully contribute to this overall haunting and esoteric impression.

It is only after the credits roll that it becomes clear that the world we have just witnessed is a world entirely without men, and as such the film takes on even further routes of expression. Just as the house cat watching the two will testify, the film wonderfully gets across just how rich the world behind our eyes really is…

It will be more than interesting to see which avenue Strickland will go down next…

Flickering Myth Rating   – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert W Monk   is a freelance journalist and film writer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtW2LRPtQY&list=PL18yMRIfoszFJHnpNzqHh6gswQ0Srpi5E

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THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY Review

•   January 21, 2015
•   Adam Patterson
•   Reviews

Film Pulse Score

In director Peter Strickland’s last film, Berberian Sound Studio , he lovingly paid homage to Italian giallo films of the ’60s and ’70s but did so in a celebratory way, rather than simply mimicking their style. With The Duke of Burgundy he takes that same sentiment and applies it to the European sexploitation films of the same era, made popular by such filmmakers as Jess Franco. The end result is a gorgeous, decadent and strange fairy tale that sets the bar very high for cinema in 2015.

Though the title implies otherwise, this film features an all-female cast and revolves around two entomologists who carry out a very interesting sex life in between attending lectures on butterflies and moths. Cynthia, played by Sidse Babett Knudsen, is the older of the two, and acts as the dominatrix for Evelyn, played by Chiara D’Anna. Seemingly every day, Evelyn gives Cynthia a script, and the two role play their relationship until the evening ends with a sexual climax.

They carry out their routine on a beautiful estate, lush with foliage and classic stone architecture, in a non-descript location in an unknown country. This mysterious fantasy land enhances the dream-like milieu of the film and helps keep everything open for interpretation.

The time period in which The Duke of Burgundy takes place is also an unknown. The visual aesthetic of the film is clearly influenced by European films of the ’60s and ’70s, so one could infer it takes place around this time. However, the time period seems irrelevant, considering the film takes place in its own little universe.

Like Berberian Sound Studio , Strickland takes the look and feel of a specific genre and eliminates the exploitative aspects. In Berberian , the film contained no graphic violence or blood, even though giallo films typically feature a lot of murder and carnage. In The Duke of Burgundy , he doesn’t show any nudity, despite the film being solely based around the sexual relationship of these two women. By taking these elements out of his films, it forces him and the viewer to focus on the characters and story instead of relying on cheap thrills.

Visually, this film is a feast for the eyes. Strickland and cinematographer, Nicholas D. Knowland, know exactly how to frame a shot and display just enough visual flair to convey style without appearing overly derivative. It’s the strongest element of the film. At times, Knowland heads into surreal territory, doubling up on or distorting the image by using a beveled mirror in front of the lens, which looks far better than adding the effect digitally in post. From the opening titles, I knew I was going to love the look of this movie, and I was not wrong.

Artfully sleazy, The Duke of Burgundy is a joyfully odd ride that may overstay its welcome with one too many false endings but will still certainly be one of the early highlights of 2015.

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Review: The Duke of Burgundy

What It Is:  Every single day Evelyn (D’Anna) and Cynthia (Knudsen) commit time to role playing elaborate dominant and submissive roles, and every night they end theirday with time together. Evelyn seems to enjoy the roleplay and it progressively getting more obsessed with the connection between sexuality and pain. Cynthia begins to resent the roleplays as Evelyn falls further, and starts to wonder whether Evelyn even loves her, or just needs her to fulfill her fantasies. They’ve reached the impasse of this situation. One of them will have to bend, something has to give. It’ll be their relationship or their prespective on sex.

What We Think: This deals with its eroticism in a way that humanizes the characters and their struggle it plays almost as a story of addiction. Evelyn is addicted to the thrill of the act and Cynthia is addicted to Evelyn. Never does the love between them reach the erotic heights of something like Blue is the Warmest Color, but it doesn’t need to. That isn’t the story this film is telling. Instead we have a woman in love with another woman that may or may not love her back.What Strickland does with simple imagery particularly that of a bug is pretty great.

Our Grade: B+, This was a really hard film for me to find, but I wanted to see what everyone was talking about. What I got was something unlike what I anticipated when I began watching the film. It’s a solid film, one that suffers from snail pacing, and the odd arthouse flair along the way. That slight arthouse flair my lose a casual viewer but if you invest yourself in the charaters and their story it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

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The Duke of Marylebone

Rupert Siskin, a humble food taster from London, becomes an everyday villain to impress the woman he loves, Lisa. He eventually gets into politics to become a perfect thief. Rupert Siskin, a humble food taster from London, becomes an everyday villain to impress the woman he loves, Lisa. He eventually gets into politics to become a perfect thief. Rupert Siskin, a humble food taster from London, becomes an everyday villain to impress the woman he loves, Lisa. He eventually gets into politics to become a perfect thief.

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• July 14, 2024 (United States)
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• £4,800,000 (estimated)

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• Runtime 1 hour 40 minutes

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