The Duke of Burgundy
October. 18,2014Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.
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Reviews
Really Surprised!
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
I started to watch this after googling to watch something good. What the hell is the point of this film? I pity every single person who thought there was a single aspect of this film worthy of note. What the hell is going on with the gay/lesbian/human world that thinks that's worth watching.
The truth is that I have become quite bored. With two actresses who give everything and are great, there comes a time when I do not know if what you want to tell me is that even if you have perversions, the sex life becomes routine because I do not know the times we see the same things.What do we want to see the poetic plans for? I know that I am very rational and I do not like abstract cinema, but the truth is that I get all the poetic plans from the film.Let's not say the master classes of living beings, I'm just waiting for the sequence to end. How boring they are.Then we go back to the movie and see the same fact again. I was wondering if my movie was wrong and then I saw that no, that is that we wanted to repeat the same sequences to satiety.I think he has a great photograph, although the composition of the camera seems to me the most bland. It does not have a pretty address.While there are times when she is wearing Sidse Babett Knudsen if it is erotic but it is.I really like the costumes and makeup but it is not enough, logically.The truth is that I have become very long.
The story of a middle-aged woman, Cynthia, a wealthy academic who lives in her home with her lesbian lover. Both women appear to have personality disorders that do not appear to have been diagnosed. Cynthia has severe control issues and Evelyn appears to be an enabler; both of them feeding off the other while role-playing a sadomasochistic creepy fetish. It was interesting to see the madness that goes on in these type of domestic abuse relationships - but especially the twisted reality of mental illness and how any form of abuse if not dealt with can turn you into a monster. The director did well to tell the story of the hidden horrors in these types of relationships and there was a scene toward the end of the movie that really showed the character, Cynthia, revert to her inner child and place of pain. There appeared to be an improvement in their relationship after that. Good directing but the story was under-developed leaving those great scenes a little confusing and incomplete.
On the surface The Duke of Burgundy is about two lesbian entomologists in a repetitive and ritualistic S&M relationship, an homage of sorts to 70's soft core euro trash. However, where those films would be voyeuristic in their depiction of such a relationship, stressing the erotic strangeness of the situation, The Duke of Burgundy cleverly does the opposite. As we are more engrossed in the world of the film, the strangeness of the two central characters begins to fade away. The world they live in contains no men, and the presence of travelling S&M saleswomen give the impression that this sexual behaviour is also the norm. The surface is stripped away to reveal a complex and nuanced metaphor for the everyday sacrifices we all make to maintain romantic relationships. If that isn't enough to sell the film, there is also a hilariously deadpan discussion about human toilets.