Kill James Bond! - S3E23.5: The Duke of Burgundy [PREVIEW]

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Get your live show tickets at https://Killjamesbond.com/live! Listen to the rest of this episode at https://www.patreon.com/posts/108418690 ----- This week on the bonus feed, November brings us The Duke of Burgundy, a beautiful, timeless movie about just how fucking exhausting it is to be lifestyle D/S. ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. For the past few months I've been talking to a family trapped in Gaza, working to hit their gofundme for passage out of Rafah whenever the crossing reopens. Their names are Ahmed and Layla, and their 4 kids Jana, Malik, Lana and Amir. While the crossing might be closed, the situation is changing by the day and being able to afford passage out when a crossing reopens is an immense comfort. https://www.gofundme.com/f/a8jzz-help-me-and-my-family-get-out-of-the-gaza-strip https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate ----- Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com

ALICE You know, we were just discussing some of the best websites that you can go to on the internet. On this little internet of ours. Yeah, and I think the sort of strong winner in that sort of pre-recording discussion was a little website called killjamesbond.com forward slash live. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if they weren't there, what would they find on killjamesbond.com slash live?

Well, I mean, you know how it is with the internet, it's sort of a treasure trove of riches and wonders and it's never really possible to predict, however, I would say that they're likely to find a list of dates for three live shows in London. And a link to buy tickets, and they could come and see, the three of us, talk about the Johnny English films. G-d Christ. Jesus Christ.

In a huge... August 9th to 11th! We... Bigger! Better! Bigger is the big word. We've booked out... More English!

Four hundred seats, boys, and we would like to fill them. It would be embarrassing if we did not. Yeah, frankly, we have booked the O2. We probably stopped podcasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not to emotionally manipulate you on an episode about a movie that involves a lot of emotional manipulation, but please, buy a ticket. Buy three tickets, you know?

The Kill James Bond testing the limits tour. ALICE The Kill James Bond topping from the bottom tour. ALICE How big can we go, let's find out! ALICE Um, I don't know if we can put that on the posters. GARETH Hey, if we sell this one out, let's see. ALICE The 02 after that!

ALICE Yeah, absolutely. GARETH We just get so close to the sun, we just completely Icarus ourselves. We sell out the front row of the O2 only, and then we're all like Bud Dwyer live on stage. Just like everybody, everybody like, gather round, gather round, you know. Kill James Bond opening for Taylor Swift in Manchester? Everyone's like, who the fuck are these guys?

Are they talking about Johnny English? For an hour and a half? And all our fans are like, who the fuck is Taylor Swift? But also, get it, Abby! Why are they dressed like that? It doesn't seem like it has any connection to the live shows. She's blonde, she's American, I'd love to open for her. ALICE On that basis, yeah.

Speaking of opening for things, I should open for this bonus episode. And this is our final Pride Month episode that does not go out in Pride Month, doesn't even overlap it closely at all. Not even slightly. But like, this was my pick for like, a piece of LGBT cinema, which I have some sort of qualms with. Not the concept about this movie, to be clear. Yeah, some qualms with LGBT cinema. I am like, homophobic, but like, yeah, no, this is one of my favorite films.

It's a film called The Duke of Burgundy, and I think that there's a lot to talk about in it, and I think there's a lot that we can pick up from our discussion of cruising as well. I think this is gonna be one of the porky, thinky episodes, rather than one of the ones where we say, you know, what about Australian Johnny? So, I apologize in advance if it- wow, voice crack. So- How's that training going? Not- not great. Um- I'm talking about a movie. So, whereas Cruising co-located homosexuality and death, this film

very much co-locates homosexuality with more homosexuality? It's true. And in fairness, you can't say that that's not evidence based. I'm co-locates homosexuality with more homosexuality. It's true. And in fairness, you can't say that that's not evidence-based. I'm co-locating homosexuality with homosexuality all the time. Mm. Too great taste, but tastes great together. Absolutely. Homosexuality and homosexuality. That's right. It's called homo, it's the same!

It's true, it's true. It's homogenous, even. I think this is a movie that's kind of a pastiche. It generates homos! It's true, it's true, it's homogenous, even. I think this is a movie that's kind of a pastiche. It generates homos! Yeah! You know what, cinema is homogenic. But like, this is a movie that's kind of a pastiche of a lot of like, 70s giallo films. It's Italian for yellow, it's a genre of Italian and Southern European. Erotic thrillers that were basically softcore porn, but which occasionally had more to them,

but were really visually striking as well, and sort of unusual. RILEY Yes. Interesting. ALICE So this is a British director, male director, Peter Strickland, going, this is an interesting thing to take things from, I'm gonna make a movie that's kind of like, using some of the visual language of those in order to talk about mixing homosexuality and homosexuality. TROY Mm. Fantastic.

ALICE You can tell, by the way, that this is what he's doing, because the titles of this movie, as we see a young woman sort of like, get up from a beautiful creek and like, cycle into a beautiful, empty European town, a very late 60s, early 70s. TROY Yeah, I thought that was an interesting choice. ALICE It looks a bit like a kind of 60s, early 70s. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting choice. It looks a bit like a kind of Belle and Sebastian video in places. Weirdly, it has a perfume credit.

Which is... Yes! That's one of my notes about the opening credits, is that there's a perfume by Jusui Gisela, and I'm like, I don't normally notice the perfume when I'm watching a film on account of it's a visual medium, the one exception of course being Spy Kids 4. Yes. Well, this one was presented in Smell-O-Vision. It's one of the reasons why I like it. The second thing I noted about the opening credits is that the lingerie supervisor is named Andrea Flesch.

Yes. Yeah. Just thought that was quite normative determinism strikes again, that's quite funny. It's got lingerie supervisor and a sensemith employed on the production of this movie. Are we considering perhaps that this film is maybe about fems a bit? I employ lingerie supervisors and sensemiths every time I do a kink scene. Every time. Smoke machine operator.

Big hand to the crew, everybody. You have the like, cunty boom mic guy from Saw in there. Yeah, he's like crouching in the corner holding the boom mic. No, no, it's not being recorded, it's a live theatre event. Of course, sorry. Excuse me, yeah, okay. Well that just goes to the speaker system that you have set up as well. Yeah, if you go to abigailfawnslashlive you can...

I'm typing right now but it doesn't go anywhere, what the fuck. We see this woman, like this young woman, dressed very 60s as well, she's got a sort of a cycling cape, and a little, like a sort of a cycling cape and a little like, sort of beetle badge on it. Beetle is in the like, you know, insect rather than the car, because we're cutting in lots of shots of insect life. I know that when the perfume credit comes on, it's like over footage of like a kind of pupil insect kind of like burrowing in the ground.

Good pun on pupil though. Oh, thank you. Yeah, so she cycles into this, like, empty... I guess, we'll talk about this town later, but like, kind of medieval-looking town that doesn't really have anyone else around. No cars, certainly. Seems to be, on my notes, just a very pretty European village. This could be France or Italy, I'm not entirely sure.

This could be anywhere at any time, basically. There's very little to tell you even what year it is. ALICE If we're being, like, cinema sins ding about it, it was filmed in Hungary, but it doesn't matter. This is the point, exactly, she says, that it has a kind of placelessness and timelessness. TANVI It could be England. ALICE Yeah, absolutely. So she goes to this beautiful, gigantic house and rings the doorbell.

Want this house. So nice. It's a very beautiful place, right? All the locations are beautiful. It's very me. Yeah, and the door is opened by a very austere woman. Austere, older woman, I should say, as well. Who lets her in, and what we see is that this younger woman, I'll just give

them the names now, the younger woman is Evelyn, the older woman is Cynthia, Evelyn, like, apparently works as a maid? She starts cleaning this huge, beautiful, austere house. S First of all she's told off for sitting down on the couch, she didn't tell you you could sit. And she says, you know, please clean the study, or she doesn't say please, she says clean the study and don't take all day about it. In this beautiful house, as Evelyn is cleaning it, we see there is an enormous butterfly collection, which is spectacular.

And a very adorable kitty. S. Oh the cat thing is incredible. A. There is a very sweet cat. A. It's a beautiful ragdoll, I love the kitty. S. I do also want to say, right, if this is a movie that you think you might be interested in watching, I recommend watching it now, like pausing the episode going away and watching it now. Yes.

I think the first watch, having as little information about it as possible, absolutely changes it. Because I mentioned this is one of my favorite movies, I've seen it maybe like half a dozen times. Having seen this as many times as I have, it takes on a very distinct quality, which we'll get into some of these scenes. But I think for the first time watching it, one of the things that I really treasure about watching this with people is seeing how they experience it for the first time and what the kind of process of realization and understanding of plot happening is. We'll put a hard break here before we start spoiling it, so go away and watch the movie

now if you don't want to get spoiled. Yeah, absolutely. Welcome back, thanks for watching the movie. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. Let's have a little chat. It was pretty good, huh? Yeah. Wipe yourself off before you turn the podcast back on.

Look at yourself. Jesus Christ. You couldn't have put on a tie to listen to the podcast? God, people, this is a problem. People don't fucking dress up to listen to podcasts anymore. It's true. Put on a proper suit. Anyway, as you will recall, having now seen the film. Boy, that's quite enough of that. If you want to hear the rest of this beautiful bonus episode of Kill James Bond, you're going to want to head on over to our Patreon, patreon.com slash killjamesbond all one word and sign up today for five pounds a month minimum five pounds a month for two beautiful handcrafted locally sourced podcasts and I don't

know if you can beat that deal anywhere else and if you can don't tell me about it we do not have price matching we're not interested all right I'll see I'll see you behind the paywall love you