this is one of the most incisive, penetrating, and empathetic films ever made about what it truly means to love another person, audaciously disguised as salacious midnight-movie fare
regardless, you get the sense that if Strickland had set his movie on some suburban couch in Brooklyn, it would work just as well. He's sensitive to the creep of cooling ardor; the film has a traditional appeal that's wholly separate from its surface
it's true that "The Duke of Burgundy" is designed to appeal to (the following words should be said in a leering, silky, vaguely accented whisper) only the most sophisticated tastes, its pleasures require no special film knowledge