Film

Review: ‘The Duke of Burgundy’

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The Duke of Burgundy
Mike D'Angelo

Five stars

The Duke of Burgundy Chiara D’Anna, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Eugenia Caruso. Directed by Peter Strickland. Not rated. Available on video on demand.

Set in a mysterious alternate world populated exclusively by women (all of whom appear to be amateur lepidopterists), director Peter Strickland’s follow-up to Berberian Sound Studio at first appears to be just a clever homage to ’70s European lesbian softcore. As the film observes its central couple (played by Chiara D’Anna and Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudsen) engage in outré BDSM scenarios, however, it gradually, unexpectedly deepens into one of cinema’s most incisive and strangely touching portraits of a long-term relationship. Strickland employs the kinkiness and role-playing (most of which is merely suggested—there isn’t even any nudity) as an arresting metaphor for more mundane things people grudgingly do to make their lover happy, like indulging dull hobbies or enduring TV shows to which their partner is inexplicably addicted. There’s no duke in The Duke of Burgundy (the title refers to a butterfly), but in the wasteland of January releases, this movie is king.

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