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I know we sometimes give Fifty Shades of Grey a bad rap. After all, it is an insanely popular film about sex and the sexy people who have it — but let’s be honest: Fifty Shades of Grey warped BDSM to make it look less like a consensual dance of wills and more like outright abuse. 2014’s The Duke of Burgundy fixes this. The unabashedly artsy, super sensual, and deeply twisted film depicts a lesbian BDSM relationship where power seesaws from master to servant.
The Duke of Burgundy follows the Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a wealthy expert on lepidopterology (or butterflies), and her student/servant/submissive sexual partner Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna). As the film opens, we watch as Evelyn toils away to please her master. If Evelyn errs or fails to live up to Cynthia’s high standards, she is duly punished. It might seem like a simple case where Cynthia is the master and Evelyn is the servant, but as the film unfolds, we see that not all is as it meets the eye. Cynthia is uncomfortable in her dominant role and only does so to fulfill Evelyn’s wildest desires.
The Duke of Burgundy wowed audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014 and become an art house darling. It’s not just that the film offers oodles of sexual imagery, but its gorgeous from start to finish. Writer/director Peter Strickland gives The Duke of Burgundy a poetic flair with only elevates the eroticism out of lurid camp. Then again, if you’re just looking to see two hot butterfly experts get their kink on, the film has that, too!
It’s okay if you missed The Duke of Burgundy when it hit the festival circuit last year. The film is one of the manynew additions to Netflix in October 2015.
[Watch The Duke of Burgundy on Netflix]
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