By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Peter Strickland
Country: united_kingdom
Year: 2015
Running time: 104
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2474024/reference
Jason says: “It’s tempting to interpret the characters’ behavior in THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY in terms of closets and shame; it’s sort of the default for this period and would probably be a fascinating way to play it. Peter Strickland has other, potentially more striking directions to go instead, and certainly makes it memorable.
“Every day, Evelyn (Chiara d’Anna) rides her bicycle to a mansion where she works as a maid for Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a demanding mistress who, like many women at the turn off the twentieth century, spends a great deal of her time studying insects. Any slow or substandard work and Evelyn will be punished, subject to Cynthia’s strange sexual whims.
“Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story; in fact, it is deliberately misleading. Strickland and his characters don’t quite hide their true selves under multiple levels of artifice and role-play, but it will take some careful unraveling to reveal just who has what kind of power in the relationship. Strickland repeats scenes and sequences and escalates the situations without necessarily having immediate cause and effect, and that’s potentially important: Relationships and people may have a distinct life cycle just as insects do, and while some of those processes may seem strange to those user to something else, both their state at any point and progression may be completely natural.
“Sidse Babett Knudsen gets the best chance to show this off; playing the older of the two leads, she becomes intriguing as the audience starts to suspect she has history and a list interest in game playing because of it. For as much as Cynthia initially comes off as imperious, Knudsen is great at showing so much of what she does is a compromise. That’s not so much the case with Chiara d’Anna as Evelyn, but she’s fascinating in another way, portraying some seriously contrasting impulses in ways that can be both unnerving and funny, though without ever making Evelyn the butt of the joke. The way that they play off each other is fantastic, such that the all-female cast does not really need much more, although Fatma Mohamed has a great, funny little role in a scene or two.
“Though the film is very much about Evelyn and Cynthia, Strickland presents it in an elaborate, surreal manner. The mania for entomology of a hundred years ago was a very real thing, and Strickland gives them featured appearances in scenes that are transfixing, even if their meaning isn’t immediately obvious or they’re illustrations disconnected from the rest of the movie. He’ll frame and hold a shot for a few extra seconds to let an image sink in a little, generally letting things proceed at a leisurely pace and not having the soundtrack over-emphasize dramatic moments. As you might expect from the guy who made BERBERIAN
SOUND STUDIO, the sound design is a match for the gorgeous visuals, and the opening credits are a wonderful tribute to the erotic art-house cinema of years gone by that it is largely inspired by, even if some effects rely on modern CGI.
“It’s odd and a specific sort of sexy enough that it might not be for everyone, but that could largely be said for BERBARIAN as well. So far, Peter Strickland has made movies that career to technical and sexual fetishists, and I’m curious to see where his camera lands next.
“Seen 20 September 2014 in Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar #8 (Fantastic Fest, DCP)”
Kyle says: “THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is a major stylistic advance for writer/director Peter Strickland from his double Chlotrudis nominee (Best Actor, Best Production Design) BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012), and a thoroughly astonishing piece of work. Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS by way of Peter Greenaway’s works, with a soupçon of 1960s erotic cinema auteur Radley Metzger folded into the bouillabaise, came to mind. There is even a moment evocative of the indelible meal parade at the climax of Greenaway’s THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, AND HER LOVER (1989), as Lorna (Monica Swinn) and Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) carry a very important wooden chest from one room to another in perfect rhythm with the beautifully strange music by Cat’s Eyes (Rachel Zeffira and Faris Badwan). Every frame, and every aspect, of this film is memorable, especially the cinematography by Nicholas D. Knowland that is quite possibly the best of the year. THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is highly recommended to all Chlotrudis members.
“Friday, October 23, 2015, on Netflix, New York.”
Chris says: “Peter Strickland hasn’t made a safe follow-up to BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO; if anything, THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is even further out there, paying intricate homage to not one, but two subterranean genres. It reprises the previous film’s giallo fixation, and adds on a soupçon of classy sexploitation as its two lead characters are involved in a lesbian love affair. Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a wealthy, middle-aged lepidopterist and Evelyne (Chiara D’Anna), her younger housemaid, initially appear to have a working relationship with master-and-servant undertones; within the first fifteen minutes, those
undertones become overtones with an explicitly sexual dynamic.
“However, the film is not just a kinky parade of verbal abuse, face-sitting, being tied and locked up and other unmentionables alluded to behind closed doors; it’s also a profound, intriguing, complicated love story. While Cynthia plays the master role, it’s increasingly apparent that Evelyne is the person directing the whole pas de deux, dictating much of the action, feeding Cynthia many of her lines. Meanwhile, Cynthia feels less and less comfortable in her role as she falls deeper in love. Strickland parses this dynamic carefully via interactions between the two women that often ask what it means for a lover to play or even live up to her role. The slightest shift, the smallest change in routine or crack in a façade can bring a significant, occasionally devastating result.
“On top of all this, THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY is a both an extreme visual and aural feast, from its deliberately lovingly retro opening credits (greatly enhanced, like the rest of the film, by a beguiling psych-folk score from the band Cat’s Eye) to its stunning lighting and cinematography (watch out for Evelyne’s eyes as she repeatedly looks into the microscope) to its overall period design, which heavily suggests late ‘60s/early ‘70s without ever definitively pinpointing it. I could also go on about the Stan Brakhage-like editing, the rich butterfly motifs, the many scenes where the narrative seems to pause and temporarily fade away as if dangerously entering a dream state. Knudsen is also flat-out brilliant in expressing the wide chasm between Cynthia’s role and actual self. Although not for everyone, Strickland has made a daring, stimulating, one-of-a-kind, filling-like-a-seven-layer-cake extravaganza that affects the senses in a way only film as an medium can—that he did it with an all-female cast (when’s the last time you saw a film that had one?) is the extra icing on top.”