The Duke of Burgundy

"The Duke Of Burgundy" was a fictional pub in the classic Ealing comedy Passport To Pimlico (1949). It also happens to be the name of a certain species of butterfly found only in England. Far from a film about a friendly neighbourhood pub, or an educational chat with David Attenborough, the 2014 incarnation of The Duke Of Burgundy is encased within a potent atmosphere of unease, sexual tension, twisted eroticism and dark humour. Much like viewing a case of mounted butterflies, we watch the action unfold. Visuals are more important than words. This is a truly cinematic experience that demands its audience closely observe everything before its eyes. The butterfly metaphor may be overused - having been exploited in The Collector (1965) and in The Smiths lyric "You can pin and mount me like a butterfly" - however, it is revisited to great effect in this film.

The film observes the daily routine of Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna). Much like insects pinned down and encased under glass, we observe them trapped in a provocative routine that starts with punishment and pleasure and ends with a crumbling emotional facade. As Cynthia yearns for a more conventional relationship, Evelyn's obsession with erotic role-playing threatens to push the two apart.

The Duke of Burgundy is a unique voyeuristic experience courtesy of Peter Strickland, the award winning writer and director of Berberian Sound Studio and Katalin Varga. Much like Berberian Sound Studio, he returns us to the European cult movies of the 1970's. It's refreshing to note that while many recent directors seem to be emulating the crowd-pleasing visuals of The Wachowskis, Lynch, Tarantino or Snyder, Strickland is enthralled with Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Jess Franco and Sergio Martino - with a pinch of Bergman. To a certain degree, Strickland's themes and visuals may also owe a debt to lesser known Euro-cult gems like Baby Yaga and Daughters of Darkness.

Anyone who's familiar with The Duke of Burgundy's cinematic lineage knows how essential a good soundtrack is. Many of the original giallo and Euro-sleaze films where soundtracked by the likes of Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and Goblin. The Duke of Burgundy benefits greatly from a soundtrack by Cat's Eyes, an alternative pop duo featuring vocalist Faris Badwan - of English indie rock band The Horrors - and Italian-Canadian soprano, composer and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Zeffira (sounding rather like Lynch favourite Julie Cruise). Having played their first ever gig in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, during an afternoon mass "attended by seven high-ranking cardinals", the duo are the perfect choice to compliment Strickland's retro Italo-thriller imagery. The opening credit sequence is an especially good mix of sound and image recalling the era perfectly.

If the overtly commercial eroticism of Fifty Shades of Grey leaves you cold, then head down to The Duke of Burgundy and drink in its intoxicating brew of dark, atmospheric erotica.

Peter Strickland is a film maker who likes to do things differently – his last feature 'Berberian Sound Studio' will mean you will never look at a vegetable the same way again. Here he takes on the theme of a sadomasochistic, lesbian relationship to examine how we all depend on each other and the inter dependencies that can occur to make relationships work. At the heart are two lovers Cynthia and Evelyn who seem to be in a very one sided relationship – one being mistress and one being badly used servant.

They are also both entomologists and give talks on moths and butterflies – the title 'The Duke of Burgundy' is an actual butterfly orange and brown in colour and found in Europe and mostly Southern Britain. The moths also act as a metaphor in the case of being 'drawn to a flame' scenario; but also the many butterflies pinned and mounted that occur throughout the film reflect the love/abuse relationship in that the very beauty that attracts some people cause them to act in cruel way to the object of desire.

This is not 'Fifty Shades of Grey' the sex is all tastefully done off screen. It is also exceptionally beautifully filmed – in Hungary as it turns out. The attention to style and miniscule details is almost obsessive and worth every effort in terms of rewards for the viewer. It is though about relationships and what we will do for each other – even if it goes against our own particular grain. This is a film for those who appreciate art-house but like it to have one foot in realism (at least) and as such is one I both enjoyed and can easily recommend.

This is frustrating because I felt like I had so much to say about the film as it was going on but now I can't find the words. The directing here is spellbinding. That is really the one word to describe it. It's so sensual and seductive, so enigmatic and impenetrable. The directing transforms everything else around it. Sidse Babett Knudsen is also absolutely spectacular. Throughout most of it she carries the film with just her face, and that's all she needs to make us understand. She deserves awards attention, for sure.

Unfortunately, when I said that the directing was spellbinding, it is... but there's a certain disconnect between it and the screenplay. Thematically, the film is strong (sort of), but narratively, it's also incredibly repetitive and drawn out. No doubt Strickland's direction strengthens the film quite a lot, as does Knudsen, and while visually there are so many things to marvel at, the direction almost gets away with hiding its flaws... almost. When the film isn't drawing out its inevitable conclusion (which, in terms of the last shot, was completely predictable) it sort of feels oddly melodramatic (without ever really going big) and sort of soapy. I enjoyed the film, no doubt, but the longer it went on the bigger a disconnect I felt between its various aspects. Still, I see this getting a lot of passionate fans (and dissenters) from both sides. I'm definitely in the positive side, although it really deserved to be so much better as a whole

A rather simple "story" or rather vignette about the tensions in a relationship - the two lovers are lesbians (Evelyn and Cynthia) and are playing out a dominance and submission scenario - but basically the problems the couple faces are the same as with most relationships: Boredom by routine, a little jealousy, and Cynthia is having trouble with Evelyn's more and more demanding whims.

What makes this film stand out for me is the all-embracing vision: Acting, costumes, set design, props, music, rhythm - everything works together perfectly to form a total work of art. Usually such a clear and uncompromising concept is restricted to short films; here it's drawn out to 100 lush minutes. I felt positively reminded of Peter Greenaway! There are also some fun visual jokes or references like the mannequins in the audience but they don't take away from the focus.

Now, while that's some praise, there's also drawbacks that come with this single-mindedness: The plot is just a "plot", coming from and leading to nowhere; we never learn much about the characters; the whole thing begins to feel drawn-out. Basically you could have told the thing in 30 minutes without losing much impact. While I can wholeheartedly recommend this beautiful production, I doubt if I'll rewatch it anytime soon in its full length.

The meretricious film "The Duke of Burgundy" sinks under its own pretentious weight - an obnoxiously bad example of music video directors (Fincher and the like) taking over contemporary cinema. I'll briefly comment on what ordinarily I would merely toss (DVD) into the waste basket, informed by the director's telltale interview comments in the "bonus" (or bogus) material.

Claiming a budget of a million pounds (pity the fools running Film 4 and BFI in England these days) he mentions originally being pitched to direct a remake of a lousy Jesus Franco porn film from the '70s, a project he quickly tired of (who wouldn't - Franco remade all his losers from this period a dozen times over himself).

Instead he pounces on the flimsy juxtaposition of a a BDSM submissive living in co- dependence with an older woman who doesn't really get the BDSM imperative and only partially derives sustenance vicariously by pleasing the other. That plus unbelievably pretentious imagery about entomology spins out a tedious exercise that once again is all tension and no release - a surefire recipe for either putting a viewer to sleep or having him (or her) make a mad rush for the exit.

I have been watching a vast cross-section of lesbian porn in recent years, from the key sources such as Girlfriends Films, Sweetheart Video, Filly Films, Abigail Productions, Girl Candy and others. To varying degrees they all deliver the goods - naturalistic sex, real orgasms (believable at any rate), beautiful female performers, modest but fairly interesting story lines, an emotional connection, full nudity and explicit XXX visuals (with no cocks in sight). There are no cocks (or males) in "Burgundy", but no nudity, not even interesting soft-core sex, and precious little emotion or faked orgasm. The entire movie is a cheat, typical of the junk that clutters Film Festival schedules around the world, aimed at a coterie of fest programmers and so-called critics who for many decades practice virtual masturbation at the screening rooms with "artistic" pretend- pornography (see: Walerian Borowczyk, name-dropped by this hack alongside Franco).

Most telling interview statement is how the self-made genius who created this movie admires the films of hacks like Franco because they have been overlooked by mainstream film historians. What he fails to mention is that for approximately 25 years now the "outlaw" or euphemistically termed "exploitation" cinema has been egregiously promoted in conjunction with the rise of video (VHS then DVD) as prime source of viewing for younger would-be film buffs and due to the vagaries and ignorance of distribution predominates over mainstream works. Ask any young film buff today about Italian films and they will know by heart the works of Dario Argento, Joe D'Amato and perhaps Deodato and Umberto Lenzi (plus of course Sergio Leone) but would they have seen a single film by Ermanno Olmi, Francesco Rosi or even Marco Bellocchio (beyond his pornographic "Devil in the Flesh"), let alone the geniuses like Fellini, Visconti, Antonioni, Rossellini, Germi, Bolognini, Risi, Monicelli, Scola, Wertmuller and dozens of others?

No, the Tarantino revolution elevating junk (ALL of which I saw 40 or 50 years ago in cinemas in parallel with the "high art" I'm namedropping here) above quality has become firmly entrenched. If "The Duke of Burgundy" is to represent the 21st Century's version of "Arthouse cinema", just contrast it with the most ubiquitous titles I used to see over and over 50 years ago at my local revival and art houses, neither of which has been shown hardly at all in the past 25 years: Bourguignon's "Sundays and Cybele" and Teshigahara's "Woman in the Dunes" (latter also dealing with entomology). Back in the day it was often decried how those two titles were "overexposed" since programmers became infatuated with them (alongside the most popular of the day, Bergman), but who knew they would be forgotten and Joe Sarno films of the '60s would replace them in the consciousness of so many film buffs two generations later.