The Duke of Burgundy

👍👍👍

Movies like this don't come around to often. From the opening credits to the beautiful set and excellent score, this is a film full of atmosphere and surrealism. For those of you who don't know what The Duke of Burgundy is, its a rare butterfly, and this film is definitely a rare specimen. It's beautifully tender, with the two excellent leads making a sub/dom relationship look pretty normal, being locked in a box, peed on or cleaning the house when told to would probably be considered a bit weird by most people, but this a story of love, passion, insecurities and relationships. It works on so many levels. There's lots to question; why are there no men in the village? Why are they all into butterflies? Who cares, its great and takes you to another world. One that will stay with you long after. The dream sequence is beautiful, only matched by the love making scenes in Under the Skin in my opinion. If you like works of art with substance, then this is for you. If you like films about power, greed, and capitalism then avoid this, its not for you

Even I, in my 63 year-old female dotage, got the bug. What a great pair. Both the characters and the actors. The story is tight; every moment is important; and there are a lot of silent moments. A couple of lesbians, one rich and older/one cute and younger, live together, love together, and sex up a storm. For the younger one, sex is every waking moment. Even moments with no physical contact. For her the act of being a sex slave makes her deliriously happy and sexy. She always has orders for her dominant queen. She dresses her, tells her how to sit, and how long. The dom is getting a little tired of the whole deal, or is she?

Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is a middle-aged woman, a professor who studies butterflies and moths. She lives in an opulent house full of books and insects, we do not know where she lives or in what time but its safe to assume its in the 1970's. Her life revolves around regular visits to the library, seminars about butterflies and moths, and causing as much pain to her maid as possible. The younger Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna) works as the maid, and Cynthia finds any excuse to find fault in Evelyn's work. But we soon learn that Evelyn is the dominant half of this relationship, who demands that Cynthia performs in an elaborate erotic game of her choosing. But what was once daring and sexually charged, becomes stifling for both who soon lose patience. Not even some bespoke erotic furniture can mask the problems in their fragile relationship. Peter Strickland's last film 'The Barbarian Sound Studio' was a homage to Italian horror films of the 70's, and 'The Duke of Burgundy' does the same for the European Erotica films from the same era. Its often a very funny film, including cinematic firsts in the credits for a Human toilet consultant and Perfumes by Je Suis Gizelle! 'The Duke Of Burgundy' may be an acquired taste to some, it's a beautifully shot film. It's a curious study of an unusual love affair with universal connections, aided by two fine performances from Knudsen and D'Anna who show a great deal of restraint. A lot of questions about their relationship go unanswered, but its not to the films detriment. 'The Duke of Burgundy' is a kinky, hallucinatory gem from a unique director.

Peter Strickland's follow-up to BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO is an equally arty mood piece, although a film with even less plot (if that's even possible). Instead, the narrative structure focuses on building up characters and relationships and a very specific atmosphere, without worrying too much about story lines or character arcs. As with BERBERIAN, it's a film I'm in two minds about. On a physical level, it's very well made indeed and often beautifully shot. I particularly loved the '70s-themed opening credits which are quite breathtaking. As you'd expect from Strickland, the attention to detail in terms of sound is also quite wonderful; this is a film that has clearly been carefully edited, which must have been a painstaking process. What I didn't enjoy so much was the foot-dragging pace, or the lack of either resolution or explanation. In short, THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY explores the relationship between a pair of lesbian lovers, where one is the dominant mistress and the other a submissive servant. Interest arises from a twist where it gradually turns out that the submissive girl is very much the one in control. I liked that aspect of it, and the two actresses are very convincing in their parts. But what's the overall result? This is a nice film to watch and enjoy purely on an artistic level. But it seems there's little to keep you coming back. This certainly isn't an exploitation piece, as any questionable material is kept off-screen and there isn't even any nudity. It's restrained, chilly, beautiful, sure, and I enjoyed the entomological background, but once I'd spent nearly two hours with this movie I was eager to go on to find something with more substance.

This movie tries to be so many things, and fails at all, the one thing it excels at is being a complete waste of time. The people writing good reviews for this film are either somehow affiliated with it, or truly have no idea what a decent movie is. The entire movie is based on little scripts the two women rehearse, and there is maybe three of them, and then it's a simple matter of 'rinse and repeat'. I have NO IDEA why the director thought that a woman peeing into another woman's mouth would be in any way appealing to anyone, apart of course for those out there that are extremely kinky, of course you don't see this, thank god for that, but you do hear it. As I mentioned the movie just repeats itself over and over again until it ends, it's just utter crap, and there are moments in the film where there is insanely annoying sounds with obscure images in the background, it's like the director/editors had completely run out of ideas and put these bits in to simply make the movie longer, of course they would have been doing us all a favor had they simply left them out, or better still, never made the movie in the first place. ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!.

I started to watch this after googling to watch something good. What the hell is the point of this film? I pity every single person who thought there was a single aspect of this film worthy of note. What the hell is going on with the gay/lesbian/human world that thinks that's worth watching.

This isn't a d/s film really as some say (more routinely known as bdsm but I shorten it to essentials). To my mind, that would be about someone who sheds control and truly gives herself over to another person. What we have instead is someone controlling a fantasy around her. This doesn't preclude it from being good of course but it's worth making the distinction between * as piece of theater and vital baring of soul. But this reveals what the film is actually about and only disguised with erotica. It's about obsessive self, the self that tries to control life, shown as the real barrier that stands in the way of knowing intimacy, reducing life to theater. A petulant ego, as we go on to see, that only expects to be pleased and smothers the other, and the rituals, games, fictions it weaves that keep it from being there for the genuine exchange with another person that sex and love are both ways to manifest. In this way she explores neither herself nor her partner. And I would go a step further. The big question in both loving intimacy with another person and making a film about it, or really any film that wants to probe the deepest recesses of self, is by what degrees to know and maintain distance, the distance as ambiguity that you honor by refusing to reduce. By what degrees to anticipate and remain open to spontaneity, lead or allow yourself to be led. You can trust that everyone from Tarkovsky to Lynch has mulled over this long and hard, how much to make known even to themselves. Here there are two reversals of control (over the viewing experience). One in who controls the exchange, and a second about the fictional nature of the exchange. Their effect however is that they leave me with a rather thin reality of petulant abuser and her exasperated enabler. What I have revealed of this world makes me feel that it's not worth staying for. But knowing his previous work, this is a filmmaker who wants to see with an eye that delves into space to know the feel and cares primarily for what creates visual fabrics. I have him on a short list of talent with the potential to be commanding our attention in the near future. A very remarkable flow here delves between the woman's thighs, delves through her sex to the box that contains the skeletal remains of what used to be love, and through it to a forlorn walk in the woods that culminates with another box that is the girl swallowing her with suffocating desire. So he has good intuitions, an eye that reminds me of Europe in the 70s. I hope he grows and takes the leap from being a Juraj Herz or more intelligent Franco into transcendent dreamworlds (as opposed to symbolic). But if he rests here, part of me will be happy all the same, the part of me that favors ethereal wandering. We don't get much of it anymore.

This film is all about the very special dominance-and-submission (BDSM) relationship of two lesbians, one of them is an entomologist and the other is her domestic maid. There is little plot to even talk about; and at the end of the film, the couple is seen going through the same play routine as seen at the film's start. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is being introduced to the public as a sensual art- film, and so a lot of film critics are blabbering about how good it is and how many influences they recognize in it and all that stuff . . tss. OK maybe i don't get it . . . that's possible but i was misled by all the good reviews here on IMDb. With this review i want to give another view on the film: i find this movie not the least bit sensual or erotic, unemotional, funny and even hilarious in a ridiculous kind of way, utterly stupid, absurd, superficial, largely melodramatic and, last but not least: very, very, very boring!

source: The Duke of Burgundy