Review of The Duke of Burgundy (2015) by August M — 07 Oct 2015

Described in advance as a lesbian S&M spectacle, this will suitably disappoint those who are interested in it for that reason. It is a portrait of a boring, middle class, repressed, repetitive relationship, like the many thousands we like to think of as such in the miles and miles of suburbia around the world.

The only difference is that it is dressed up slightly by making the characters lesbian and giving the repetition a vaguely sexual nature. But it could just as easily have been about the washing up or putting out the garbage bins.

Undoubtedly that was part of the point of the film, to be ironical, while being artfully put together. But the art is prosaic and the film is just a shallow, middle class indulgence. Its most unattractive feature is its crude exploitation of hundreds of dead animals, in the form of butterflies and other insects formaldehyded and pinned to the wall.

One star for the nobility of those creatures, compared with the lack of it in the makers.