The Duke of Burgundy

Love can be a cru­el mis­tress, as British direc­tor Peter Strick­land so exquis­ite­ly illu­mi­nates in this star­tling­ly beau­ti­ful piece of Euro erot­i­ca. The shift­ing nature of long-term rela­tion­ships is explored through a cou­ple with a fetish for but­ter­flies and S&M and it’s a sump­tu­ous, spell­bind­ing, sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence. Cyn­thia (Sidse Babett Knud­sen) and Eve­lyn (Chiara D’Anna) inhab­it a sequestered abode in an unnamed Euro­pean town which is occu­pied only by women. They spend their days play­ing sex games, study­ing but­ter­flies and cycling to a grand ety­mol­o­gy insti­tute where they lis­ten intent­ly to lectures.

Seduc­tive and sen­si­tive by turns, Strick­land sin­u­ous­ly stud­ies Cyn­thia and Evelyn’s pair­ing with ele­gance, style and a frank emo­tion­al hon­esty. He places their activ­i­ties under a micro­scop­ic lens, switch­ing per­spec­tives, open­ing up their bond for dis­sec­tion and dig­ging deep into their fan­tasies and feel­ings. They appear to be for­ev­er shack­led to one anoth­er in an iso­lat­ed autum­nal con­ser­va­to­ry which cages them in an eerie uni­verse. Strick­land applies the same lev­el of pre­ci­sion and ded­i­ca­tion to vig­or­ous­ly study­ing their kinky rou­tines as a Lep­i­dopter­ist does to inves­ti­gat­ing the frag­ile wings of a butterfly.

Strickland’s pre­vi­ous fea­ture, Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio, played with gial­lo tropes through sound. In The Duke of Bur­gundy, the direc­tor once again sub­verts expec­ta­tions with the teas­ing of flesh expos­ing under­ly­ing woes. We first meet the cou­ple as they are engaged in a ser­vant and mas­ter rit­u­al which pro­vides an unnerv­ing glimpse into their lifestyle. Eve­lyn peeks through key­holes at her lover undress­ing but just as in Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour there is no actu­al nudi­ty. Instead, the many lay­ers of their rela­tion­ship are peeled away to reveal uni­ver­sal truths which sur­face through their unabashed role-play.

Evelyn’s inex­haustible appetite for masochis­tic plea­sure weighs heav­i­ly on Cynthia’s mind, with her aching guilt and dis­sat­is­fac­tion even­tu­al­ly pierc­ing through the eroti­cism. Role-play­ing is occa­sion­al­ly replaced with real­i­ty, but com­pro­mise for this cou­ple proves to be a del­i­cate and uneasy affair. It’s not all heavy pet­ting and deep emo­tion­al tur­moil, how­ev­er, with Strick­land under­pin­ning his rich and reward­ing med­i­ta­tion on love with a mis­chie­vous sense of humour. Absurd visu­al jokes are dot­ted through­out; look out for the ran­dom­ly placed man­nequins in the lush­ly designed lec­ture halls and the cred­its sequence which lists ​“Per­fume by Je Suis Gizella.”

In terms of atten­tion to detail and inten­si­ty The Duke of Bur­gundy recalls Waler­ian Borowczyck’s much maligned La Marge and proves to be just as mes­meris­ing and melan­cholic. The dreamy, intox­i­cat­ing aes­thet­ic is com­ple­ment­ed by the fever­ish and oth­er­world­ly sound­track pro­vid­ed by musi­cal duo Cat’s Eyes. Strick­land cites Jess Franco’s erot­ic cin­e­ma as a visu­al influ­ence, and that’s clear through­out, even though his vision is far more sophis­ti­cat­ed and striking.