October 3rd in Chicago, IL. This was an iTunes rental on a Saturday night. There's a bit of a backstory here as well. I travel a lot and I was looking for a film to rent on an upcoming flight and I stumbled upon this title and I read the opening line of the description to my fiance, "sex, bondage and butterflies: two women explore the extremes of carnal desire in this kinky, deliciously twisted tale of erotic obsession." SOLD! I joked with my fiance about watching this while away and then she said, "why don't we watch it together?" After hanging out in the West Loop in the afternoon, we got some ice cream and settled in to view this film.
This is a European film that saw it's U.S. release on January 23, 2015 to 3 screens and then jumped to 9 screens on February 8th. Suffice to say, not too many people in America saw this film much less even heard of it. The picture was written and directed by Peter Strickland and received a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film has a very small cast and centers around the relationship between the older Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and her younger lover Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna). At first it seems that Evelyn is merely Cynthia's maid but she's subjected to strict behavioral restrictions and very high standards for cleanliness. Cynthia really comes off as a bitchy, rich snob. As the film goes on, a different light is shown on their relationship. Cynthia and Evelyn are lovers, with Cynthia as the dominant and Evelyn as the submissive.
Get the idea?
However, we start to see that maybe it's Evelyn who's the dom as she leaves notes for Cynthia that basically contain a script for Cynthia. Evelyn gets sexual pleasure from the punishments she receives for either bad behavior or failing to complete a task (Evelyn gets punished for not cleaning all of Cynthia's panties and the punishment is not seen onscreen but it was a bit unsettling when I realized what the punishment was). The relationship is a routine that both go through and it slowly wears on Cynthia as she fails to deliver her lines or does not appear "cold enough" for Evelyn. Evelyn's desire for more strict and bizarre punishments starts to take a turn towards the weird. Evelyn wants to be tied up and put in a trunk (Evelyn wants to have a special bed made where she sleeps in a drawer underneath Cynthia but refuses the gift because it will take 8 weeks to make and she settled on the trunk). Cynthia continues to play along only to placate her lover.
Cynthia resents the separation when Evelyn sleeps in the trunk, she even remarks that it's more fun when they sleep together. Evelyn wants none of that and she even criticizes Cynthia for wearing a pair of comfortable pajamas. Eventually it comes to a head when Cynthia finds out that Evelyn has been polishing the boots of another woman (apparently a big no-no in this world). They seem to make up and agree to have a more conventional relationship. However, the film ends with the Evelyn coming to the door and repeating the routine from the beginning of the film.
This was a very interesting film and not something that I would normally watch. Strickland does a nice job with the Cynthia/Evelyn relationship and showing that it wasn't what it originally seemed. The plot also contains some Lepidopterology context and imagery that I had a hard time wrapping my head around. Cynthia gives lectures about the subject (she has several collections in her home) and we get scenes where a group of women are listening to lectures about moths and butterflies. In one scene the camera pans the audience and there is clearly a dressed up mannequin in in the gallery. I have no idea what that meant. It was deliberately left in there and it's in all the lecture scenes but it goes nowhere. Perhaps there's something to do with chrysalis when a caterpillar changes into a moth/butterfly but it doesn't reflect in the characters since Cynthia and Evelyn revert back to the old routine. There's no change.
I have no idea what this means.
This film is definitely not for everyone and is very art house. It's an interesting character piece that's worth watching.
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