The Duke of Burgundy (2015)
Directed by Peter Strickland
Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.
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21 films that influenced The Duke of Burgundy
What critics say influenced The Duke of Burgundy
Honest about his influences, he cites soft-core Europorn from the ’60s and ’70s as inspiration for this oddly affecting tale, hat-tipping such films as Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Jess Franco’s A Virgin Among the Living Dead.
Duke operates on dream logic from the start – references abound to Jess Franco and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, to give you an idea of what universe we’re in – but the third act sees the visual motifs (panties, insects, the trunk) emphasized, and the character’s anxieties externalized, by way of Brakhage-esque experimental sequences.
Strongly influenced by Les Biches (1968), it’s as potentially as tragic as The Killing of Sister George (1968) and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972).
Strickland is clearly a heavy-duty cinephile—Berberian Sound Studio paid tribute to Italian giallo, and there’s a dream sequence here that includes an homage to Stan Brakhage’s avant-garde short “Mothlight”—and he has a lot of fun early on establishing the parameters of his Eurotrash softcore aesthetic.
The abstract images that represent Gilderoy's fragile mental state are mirrored by the imaginary blizzard of moths, quoted from Stan Brakhage’s experimental short Mothlight (1963), that bombards Evelyn.
One should mention the butterflies: Strickland lets the bugs fly in a borderline-experimental sequence that’s a direct quote of Stan Brakhage’s “Mothlight.”
Initially, The Duke Of Burgundy appears to be Strickland’s take on Seventies’ Euro erotica (with a nod, too, to Bergman’s Persona).
Strickland, a stylist of the highest ilk who carved out the edgy psychodramas “Berberian Sound Studio” (about a reclusive sound engineer’s descent into madness) and “Katalin Varga” (a woman travels with her child to the town of a man who raped her), which reflected his protagonists’ inner struggles outwardly with haunting effective moodiness, does so again here, and with deeper conviction, employing smears of Ingmar Bergman (especially “Persona”), Nicolas Roeg and Jess Franco (the ’60s Spanish horror-meister) to create a beguiling interweave.
The Duke of Burgundy, named for a variety of butterfly, synthesizes cultural sources as sundry as the Sapphic playacting of Jean Genet’s The Maids, the psychic conjunction of Bergman’s Persona, and the insect symbolism of Wyler’s The Collector.
Honest about his influences, he cites soft-core Europorn from the ’60s and ’70s as inspiration for this oddly affecting tale, hat-tipping such films as Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Jess Franco’s A Virgin Among the Living Dead.
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The cyclist is Evelyn, played by Chiara D’Anna, whose demure Euro-exoticism appropriately recalls Maria de Medeiros circa Henry & June.
Writer/director Peter Strickland's ("Berberian Sound Studio") latest begins with a bit of an ick factor as his opening lesbian S&M scenario ends with a behind-closed-door 'punishment' that sounds dreadful, but trust in this auteur as "The Duke of Burgundy" (a type of butterfly) blossoms into a louche hothouse Gothic that plays like Dario Argento's "Celine and Julie Go Boating" or Peter Greenaway's "Angels and Insects."
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.”
This bizarre yet stylish examination of perversity and sexual fetishes from British director Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio) follows lesbian lovers Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna), who spend each day locked into a routine of sadomasochistic domination at a European estate.
Following up on the critically praised “Berberian Sound Studio,” Strickland stirs his love of Giallo cinema and sinister atmospherics in a cauldron containing the tastiest potions available in cinema, and creates a spell that had us hypnotized, immersed, and still awestruck.
Dressed in a way that suggests the past without specifying any particular period, a young woman named Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna, who also appeared in Strickland’s previous film, Berberian Sound Studio ) arrives at the lavish home of an older woman, Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen, star of the Danish TV series Borgen ).
A movie about movies and about butterflies and two lovers deep in the woods, dense with influence, about decadence and desire, the third feature by Peter Strickland (“Berberian Sound Studio,” “Katalin Varga”), “The Duke Of Burgundy” dabbles as well in entomology, taxonomies, field recordings, roleplaying and domination.
The director in this case is also the writer: Peter Strickland, making his second feature in his native English, after 2012's Berberian Sound Studio .
Strickland’s previous feature, the excellent psychological study Berberian Sound Studio, also mined niche territory.
It’s a sadomasochistic passion play between two gorgeous females (Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D’Anna), shot in the lushly naughty style made popular by The Lickerish Quartet’s Radley Metzger.
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Strongly influenced by Les Biches (1968), it’s as potentially as tragic as The Killing of Sister George (1968) and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972).
The Duke of Burgundy, named for a variety of butterfly, synthesizes cultural sources as sundry as the Sapphic playacting of Jean Genet’s The Maids, the psychic conjunction of Bergman’s Persona, and the insect symbolism of Wyler’s The Collector.