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- Title
¡Pinastri!: la metamorfosis del deseo sadomasoquista y la subversión de la fantasía pornotópica en The Duke of Burgundy.
- Authors
OXBROW, GINA
- Abstract
At first sight, The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014) might seem to be a soft-porn film in the style of Bilitis (David Hamilton, 1977) due to the recurring backdrop of bucolic green and leafy landscapes within an apparently bourgeois setting. The film centres on the sado-masochistic relationship between Cynthia, a prosperous academic and well-known entomologist, and her younger lover, who is also her submissive maid and research apprentice. They live together in a de-contextualized location with no name, reminiscent of a pornotopia of unfettered desire. Yet, once mundane domestic routine takes over, this leads to an imbalance between domination, fantasy, satisfaction and role-play. In the following analysis, we shall highlight the constant explicit nods by the director to the films of Jess Franco, Armando Bó or Luis Buñuel, which thus result in the film becoming more of a pastiche of pornotopic cinema productions not only of lesbian relationships, but it ends up being a sadomasochistic parody, too. We are now confronted with a subversion of mainstream pornography, usually directed at a stereotypically male heterosexual audience. In this production, female desire is empowered by means of the psychological development of the lead characters, as they are not represented as mere objects of desire for the viewer's pleasure, but as subjects enjoying their own sexuality to the full.
- Subjects
DEVELOPMENTAL psychology; LESBIAN relationships; FILM genres; PERSONALITY development; SEXUAL fantasies; WOMEN'S sexual behavior; PARODY; BUNUEL, Luis, 1900-1983
- Publication
Moderna Sprak, 2021, Vol 115, Issue 3, p154
- ISSN
2000-3560
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.58221/mosp.v115i3.6844