Review of The Duke of Burgundy (2015) by Cole J — 18 Feb 2015

Although it will probably leave audiences mystified and confused, as it did me, it may also excite depending on how much you like art house films. Personally I enjoyed the originality of the film's abstract tone. It was like an ancient, dark, sexual autumn. Peter Strickland commands all elements of filmmaking here to create this one-of-a-kind atmosphere. The color palate is that of autumn, the art direction creates an old mansion that blends with the woods surrounding it, the editing is abstract, repetitious, and hypnotic, and the music embodies all of these aurally. There are lots of details that Strickland fills each frame with that make this film the stimulating puzzle it is.

It's very sexual. There are no men in the film. If a man were to pop up it would somehow disrupt everything. And there are butterflies. I don't know what the butterflies mean. Is it a puzzle worth solving? Or is it a puzzle that is so difficult to solve that to attempt it wouldn't be worth it? I would bet on the second one. Even though most audiences won't leave with a clear understanding of the film Strickland still gives us enough to eat. I don't know what I'm eating, but it tastes pretty fucking good and I've never tasted anything like it.

Though it doesn't form a whole for me, it's not so strange that it registers as a bunch of random images. There's a story, there are characters, they have goals, and our understanding of those goals is vague, but in some way familiar on an emotional level, which is why this movie can still be engaged with despite a lack of story coherence. For me this movie worked best to simply bathe in.