Tag Archives: Seventies Euro sleaze cinema

I watched Peter Strickland’s latest offering, The Duke of Burgundy, already being a big fan of his 2012 effort, Berberian Sound Studio. I appreciated Berberian Sound Studio as an homage to the Italian giallo horror films of the seventies and didn’t need any more encouragement to see his new one other than the fact it was Strickland’s tribute to the seventies Euro sleaze films of directors like Jesse Franco and Walerian Borowczyk.

But it wasn’t until about twenty minutes in to The Duke of Burgundy, that I felt I ‘got’ what both movies were trying to do and just how clever Strickland’s approach is.

The Duke of Burgundy is about the BDSM relationship between two female entomologists, Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna), the submissive, and her older dominant lover, Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen, who you may recognise from the Danish television series, Borgen). The story is set in an unspecified provincial European town in what looks like the seventies and, as you’d expect if you’ve seen Berberian Sound Studio, Strickland nails every aspect of recreating the genre: the aesthete, the soundtrack, the surrealistic ambiance, how the characters feel and react, the sex, which alternatives between being outright smutty and languorously erotic. Woven into this are some wonderfully deft touches, including the complete absence of men and the strange, sexually charged club in which women get together to discuss matters entomological.… Read more