It begins with a knock at the door. A young woman, Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna), stands meekly on the porch, wearing what appears to be servant's garb from some unspecified era, as she waits for someone to answer. The door swings open to reveal Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), an older woman, elegantly dressed, her hair tied back in a severe bun. "You're late," she tells Evelyn in a frosty tone. Evelyn quickly sets to work cleaning Cynthia's large, opulent home, but virtually everything she does displeases her mistress, who continually upbraids her for the slightest infraction. Eventually, housework gives way to a foot massage, then to further erotic humiliation, culminating — to judge from noises heard behind closed doors — in Cynthia using Evelyn's mouth as a urinal. What has the poor girl done to deserve this?
It's not hard to guess that The Duke of Burgundy's central relationship involves sadomasochistic role-playing, and that Cynthia and Evelyn are actually very much in love. What's surprising — especially for those who've seen writer-director Peter Strickland's previous feature, Berberian Sound Studio — is the way that this lush, mysterious film uses the outré trappings of a disreputable genre to explore something so universal that it almost qualifies as banal. Just as Berberian Sound Studio toyed with aspects of Italian giallo films, so The Duke of Burgundy creates the impression, at first, of being an homage to softcore '70s smut. Visual references to the work of such filmmakers as Jess Franco and Radley Metzger abound, and early scenes are concerned exclusively with sexual ritual. Gradually, however, as nothing racier than some lacy lingerie is shown, and the focus shifts, it becomes clear that titillation isn't what Strickland has in mind.
The second time Evelyn knocks at Cynthia's door, two things become apparent. One is that their interactions are carefully scripted. The other is that Evelyn, not Cynthia, is writing the scripts. Index cards containing instructions for Cynthia are all over the house, detailing the various ways she should abuse Evelyn. In a hilarious running gag, Cynthia constantly gulps down large glasses of water whenever she has a free moment or two, so that her bladder will be sufficiently full when they get to the finale. Even later on, when the master and servant roles have been put aside and the two are lounging in bed as "themselves," Evelyn has no interest in hearing Cynthia's ardent professions of love, urging her to hurl invective instead. It's in this moment, as Cynthia struggles to convert ardor into credible disdain, for Evelyn's sake, that The Duke of Burgundy reveals just how little it's really about BDSM. This could be someone enduring their partner's desire to watch Top Chef reruns for the sixth straight night, or going on a weekend skiing trip despite hating snow, exercise, heights, exhilaration and hot chocolate. It's about necessary compromises.
Strickland brilliantly buries this fundamental truth beneath a mountain of artifice. Where and when The Duke of Burgundy is set is impossible to determine, but it's certainly not the real world, at any point in history. Not only is there no duke in the movie, there are no men at all — the title refers to a species of butterfly, and every character in the movie, with the exception of Evelyn, seems to be an amateur lepidopterist, gathering regularly to take turns giving lectures on breeding habits and mating calls. (In a sly reversal of the film's standard mode, Evelyn attempts to impress Cynthia by asking pointed questions during other women's lectures, only to reveal the depth of her ignorance on the subject.) Strickland even playfully highlights the absurdity by placing several mannequins among the extras at these seminars, with no explanation. One can find a subtextual resonance for the butterfly motif — metamorphosis, whatnot — but for the most part, it serves the same function as everything else in the movie: to make the ordinary strange and arresting, so that a surge of recognition has a chance to sneak up on you unawares. What appears to be merely amusing pastiche deepens, punishment by punishment, into one of cinema's most incisive, empathetic and strangely touching portraits of devotion. Fetish porn will never look the same again.
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