Chris Knipp
01-20-2015, 11:54 AM
THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (Peter Strickland 2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/dob.jpg
SIDSE BABET KNUDSEN, CHIARA D'ANNA IN THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY
Making love. . . work
The "Duke of Burgundy"(Hamearis lucina) is a butterfly found in the British Isles, and the lesbian couple in Strickland's sophisticated new film, again making learned use of a disreputable genre (1970's continental soft core porn; Italian "giallo" last time), are entomologists who play dominance and submission games. The kicker (not a unique one, but still thought-provoking) is that the "bottom" is the one giving the instructions to the "top." These primarily involve an abusive mistress-servant relationship. Maid Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) does housecleaning and hand laundry, which is never done to the satisfaction of Mistress Cynthia (Side Babett Knudsen) . The maid arrives on a bike at the castle-like ivy-covered manse, but the couple apparently lives there together. And another ritual involves confining the "bottom" in a wooden chest at night. Meanwhile they make warm love in bed in a non-kinky way. This is when they are not at Marienbad-like meetings of an entomological society whose members are all women, some of them manikins.
I'm sorry, but I'm indifferent to the fact that Strickland's film, in Scott Foundas' words in his Variety review, "tips its hats to such masters of costumed erotica as Jess Franco, Tinto Brass and Jean Rollin." These leave me just as cold as did his sly and knowing references to period sound studios and Seventies Italian schlock horror film in his previous film, Berberian Sound Studio (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2420) (2012). But this time, his movie has a pulse -- and a heart. As Mike D'Angelo pointed out in his Toronto report for The Dissolve (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-tiff/753-day-9-cracking-the-code/), this isn't ("ultimately," he means) about lesbians and kink but about how hard loving couples may have to work to accommodate each other's emotional and sexual needs if they want to stay together. Part of this, as exemplified here, is that one partner may need the same fantasy ritual repeated over and over, exhausting the partner's patience and endurance. Here the ostensibly "dominant" female finally, quietly, touchingly, breaks down in the middle of the abusive hand laundering routine. She can't seem to remember it; probably she just can't take it any more for multiple reasons. But they still care, and the "maid" comforts her "mistress" tenderly and says it's all right.
Posh though it is, this is a kinky porno movie -- it discretely but repeatedly refers to their practice of "water sports" -- but it's also a love story. With beautiful settings and cinematography and accoutrements (including butterflies, larvae, entomological drawings, and recorded cricket chirps, part of an intricate sound design) The Duke of Burgundy is an accomplished film whose elegant artificiality and devotion to sexual fantasies make one think of Peter Greenaway and also of Jean Genet's The Maids. One would like to have seen what Nabokov would have thought of its entomology and what he might have done himself with its combined themes. How sexy it seems may depend on who you are. Voyeuristic lesbian sex scenes can always have a suspicion about them of being porn for straight guys. Some say this is very sexy; others, like Allen Hunter of Screen Daily (http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-duke-of-burgundy/5077204.article), says "none of it is remotely erotic" (that's surely an exaggeration). But sexy or not, you will grasp what Mike D'Angelo is talking about. It's when you see hints of the struggle it takes to keep the game going that the film acquires its subtle emotional resonance; where for moments at least it becomes after all touchingly real.
Yet this is refined, specialized stuff, and if you're not offended by anything here, and are impressed by the talent and artistry at work, you still may be left cold. Somehow D'Angelo feels this is going to be one of his favorite films of the decade. Indeed Strickland has made a leap forward from Berberian Sound Studio. But this kind of hothouse artificiality narrows the potential audience. Everything is obviously self-conscious. Strickland's work is remote from a sense of "real life." Like other stylized, arty filmmakers whose work is elaborately referential, he seems not particularly good at telling a story. There isn't much sense of time passing; instead, the film feels like a series of tacked-together scenes, with great stylistic confidence, but without strong narrative drive. Yet this very disjointedness may in in itself create a subtle kind of suspense if you're watching very carefully, to look for where and how the scenes are eventually going to rhyme. And there is the presence of love, a redeeming touch. And even a handsome cat, both cuddly and elegant.
The Duke of Burgundy, 106 mins., with exteriors shot in Hungary, debuted at Toronto Sept. 2014. Other festivals. Opens 23 January 2015 in the US; 20 February in the UK.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/dob.jpg
SIDSE BABET KNUDSEN, CHIARA D'ANNA IN THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY
Making love. . . work
The "Duke of Burgundy"(Hamearis lucina) is a butterfly found in the British Isles, and the lesbian couple in Strickland's sophisticated new film, again making learned use of a disreputable genre (1970's continental soft core porn; Italian "giallo" last time), are entomologists who play dominance and submission games. The kicker (not a unique one, but still thought-provoking) is that the "bottom" is the one giving the instructions to the "top." These primarily involve an abusive mistress-servant relationship. Maid Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) does housecleaning and hand laundry, which is never done to the satisfaction of Mistress Cynthia (Side Babett Knudsen) . The maid arrives on a bike at the castle-like ivy-covered manse, but the couple apparently lives there together. And another ritual involves confining the "bottom" in a wooden chest at night. Meanwhile they make warm love in bed in a non-kinky way. This is when they are not at Marienbad-like meetings of an entomological society whose members are all women, some of them manikins.
I'm sorry, but I'm indifferent to the fact that Strickland's film, in Scott Foundas' words in his Variety review, "tips its hats to such masters of costumed erotica as Jess Franco, Tinto Brass and Jean Rollin." These leave me just as cold as did his sly and knowing references to period sound studios and Seventies Italian schlock horror film in his previous film, Berberian Sound Studio (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2420) (2012). But this time, his movie has a pulse -- and a heart. As Mike D'Angelo pointed out in his Toronto report for The Dissolve (https://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-tiff/753-day-9-cracking-the-code/), this isn't ("ultimately," he means) about lesbians and kink but about how hard loving couples may have to work to accommodate each other's emotional and sexual needs if they want to stay together. Part of this, as exemplified here, is that one partner may need the same fantasy ritual repeated over and over, exhausting the partner's patience and endurance. Here the ostensibly "dominant" female finally, quietly, touchingly, breaks down in the middle of the abusive hand laundering routine. She can't seem to remember it; probably she just can't take it any more for multiple reasons. But they still care, and the "maid" comforts her "mistress" tenderly and says it's all right.
Posh though it is, this is a kinky porno movie -- it discretely but repeatedly refers to their practice of "water sports" -- but it's also a love story. With beautiful settings and cinematography and accoutrements (including butterflies, larvae, entomological drawings, and recorded cricket chirps, part of an intricate sound design) The Duke of Burgundy is an accomplished film whose elegant artificiality and devotion to sexual fantasies make one think of Peter Greenaway and also of Jean Genet's The Maids. One would like to have seen what Nabokov would have thought of its entomology and what he might have done himself with its combined themes. How sexy it seems may depend on who you are. Voyeuristic lesbian sex scenes can always have a suspicion about them of being porn for straight guys. Some say this is very sexy; others, like Allen Hunter of Screen Daily (http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-duke-of-burgundy/5077204.article), says "none of it is remotely erotic" (that's surely an exaggeration). But sexy or not, you will grasp what Mike D'Angelo is talking about. It's when you see hints of the struggle it takes to keep the game going that the film acquires its subtle emotional resonance; where for moments at least it becomes after all touchingly real.
Yet this is refined, specialized stuff, and if you're not offended by anything here, and are impressed by the talent and artistry at work, you still may be left cold. Somehow D'Angelo feels this is going to be one of his favorite films of the decade. Indeed Strickland has made a leap forward from Berberian Sound Studio. But this kind of hothouse artificiality narrows the potential audience. Everything is obviously self-conscious. Strickland's work is remote from a sense of "real life." Like other stylized, arty filmmakers whose work is elaborately referential, he seems not particularly good at telling a story. There isn't much sense of time passing; instead, the film feels like a series of tacked-together scenes, with great stylistic confidence, but without strong narrative drive. Yet this very disjointedness may in in itself create a subtle kind of suspense if you're watching very carefully, to look for where and how the scenes are eventually going to rhyme. And there is the presence of love, a redeeming touch. And even a handsome cat, both cuddly and elegant.
The Duke of Burgundy, 106 mins., with exteriors shot in Hungary, debuted at Toronto Sept. 2014. Other festivals. Opens 23 January 2015 in the US; 20 February in the UK.