The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

1989 grotesque art

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A brutish bully and sort of vague criminal--the titular thief--frequents the lush dining establishment of the titular cook. The titular abused wife meets her titular bookish lover there and begins boinking him nightly behind her husband's back. He's too busy eating fistfuls of pudding, behaving unruly, and verballing assaulting his friends and fellow patrons to notice anything like that. But when he finds out? Oh, snap! This goose is cooked!

First saw this at Clown College with Kent back in '93. It was my first trip through a Greenaway movie, and I just didn't get it. I think we rented that and Henry and June because they were both NC-17 and wanted to see some boobs. This has some boobs, specifically the two belonging to Helen Mirren, but that's not the reason to see this. The reasons to see this are the performance of Michael Gambon as the thief and the pretty pictures that Greenaway gives us. First, what's not to love-to-hate about Gambon's character? He's got to be in the running for the most despicable movie character in the history of film, right along with most of Shirley Temple's characters. What a villain. But since this is a blacker-than-black comedy, he's kind of funny, too, and he gets all sorts of great one-liners.

"There's a lady present. She doesn't want to see your shriveled contributions."
"You'd just be interested in whipping it in and whipping it out and wiping it on your jacket." (more clear in context probably)
"I think those Ethiopians like starving."
"A cow drinks its weight in water twice a week. For milk. Cause a cow's got big tits."
"I didn't mean that you literally had to chew his buttocks off. I meant it metaphorically."

It's great stuff. And it's dark and filthy, almost enough to make you feel dirty for watching the thing. It's like low-brow potty humor for the artsy-fartsy crowd. I mean, the movie starts, just like Ridicule, with a character pissing on a guy, but this takes it one step further and adds fecal matter. But as grotesque as things get, Greenaway and his cinematographer Sacha Vierny of Last Year at Marienbad fame keep things so artistic. Greenaway doesn't make motion pictures; he makes motion paintings. And there are countless shots in this son of a bitch that just floor me as the camera moves through the kitchen of the restaurant. There's no way this restaurant is passing a health inspection, by the way. There are feathers flying all over the place, a random castrato, a naked guy with shit all over him, cigarettes in the soup, a chubby shirtless guy, a truck of rotting meat, people having sex right there by the loaves of bread. But it's all so beautiful, and it's just not fair that I can only take in Greenaway's visuals with one of my senses. I'd really like to use more of them. I love the way he toys with colors in this movie with the character's clothing changing color as they move from room to room. One great scene involving a fork has this gradual reddening as the thief passively (ironic passivity) spreads something on a cracker before an intense bathroom destruction. And how the heck does one choreograph dogs and breaking bottles? Oh, man. Throw this movie in a museum because it's a visual masterpiece, marred only by a lengthy conversation near the end of the movie that I think almost spoils the surprises at the end. That scene's problem might be the acting of the cook though. Otherwise, just a lovely and disgusting movie.

The Draughtsman's Contract

1982 Peter Greenaway movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Mr. Neville, the titular Draughtsman, is hired by the wife of a rich guy to draw twelve sketches of his property while her husband is away. The price? Twelve sexual favors, the going rate in 17th Century England. As he sketches, he begins to unravel some secrets about the family, secrets that gradually start to involve him.

I've probably pointed this out before, but I'm not really smart enough to be watching Peter Greenaway movies. I just pretended to like The Falls because it was the first year of this blog's existence, and I wanted all the readers I was going to have to be impressed with my intellect. Other Greenaway movies fly so far over my feeble head that I can't enjoy them at all. And sometimes, they just have too much of Ewan McGregor's penis. This one fogged up the brain, but I enjoyed its characters, their period dialogue as ornamental and frilly as their garden and wardrobes, and the way Greenaway frames his scenes. This is Greenaway's first narrative film, and he came out with his ideas guns blazing. I've criticized him for having way too many ideas, being so intellectually gloopy that there's no way the average person can connect to his movies, but there's something comforting in knowing that the artsy-fartsiness hasn't been something that developed over time but that existed right from the get-go. This puzzling little movie reminded me a lot of Last Year at Marienbad, a riddle that was a favorite from a couple years ago. Like that movie, there's nothing happening that is all that bizarre (most of the movie is a guy drawing sketches with Peter Greenaway's hand) but their interactions just don't seem right. Of course, this movie does have a statue that walks around or sometimes urinates. You can add "Peeing Statue Man" to my list of Favorite Characters Who Don't Get Any Lines. Michael Nyman provides the score. It's a gorgeous and strange film that might give you the most enjoyable headache you'll ever have. Surprisingly, there's not much nudity at all, so you perverts looking for that sort of thing should find something else to watch. Actually, almost all of you should find something else to watch.

The Falls

1980 fake biographical catalogue

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A mysterious event (V.U.E. or Violent Unknown Event) has affected the world. Lots died, but others were affected in other ways--immortality, anatomical changes (chambers added to the heart, wings, webbed fingers), the obtaining of new languages, new genders, recurring dreams of water, the need to drive in circles. The Falls is an encyclopedic chronicle of 92 of these people, all with a last name beginning with F-A-L-L.

The cinematic equivalent to Gravity's Rainbow? I have a confession to make--it took me nearly an entire year to watch this three hour, twenty minute film. I started it in January, watched a little more in October, and finished it tonight. It's bewildering, frustrating, and difficult. However, it's also a work of unquestionable genius. As far as I know, there is nothing else even close to being like this. Self-referential with interlocking mini-biographies and themes or motifs or even characters who will pop up in later Greenaway movies, the focus isn't necessarily on the collection of stock footage, found footage, shots from early Greenaway shorts, and stuff Greenaway shot specifically for this film, but on the narrators (there are at least five) who dryly deliver dadaist details--magically realistic, absurdly humorous, head-scratching. The music--mostly Greenaway regular Michael Nyman but there's also a snippet of Syd Barrett and lots of Brian Eno in here--is really terrific. There's so much to digest here, so many parallels and so many allusions to literature, other films, folklore, science and anatomy, etc. that it makes me wonder what multiple viewings will reveal. Is this a grand, elongated joke, a riddle, a game, maniacal masturbation? Whatever it is, I dug it.

The Pillow Book

1996 drama

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Nagiko's the daughter of an aspiring Japanese writer. As a child, she derives pleasure from having her father write on her face. She adores her father and also has aspirations of becoming a writer. One day, however, she walks in on her (heterosexual?) father and his homosexual publisher completing a book deal that somehow involves the publisher putting his pants back on. Oh, snap! The body-writing thing develops into a sexual fetish as she reaches adulthood, and luckily for her, she can find lots of guys who want to write on her and then have intercourse with her. Later, she meets her father's publisher's lover and finds a way to get revenge.

Parts of this are undeniably beautiful as expected for any Peter Greenaway movie. And if you've always had the urge to see extended scenes involving a naked Obi Wan Kenobi (not Alec Guinness at 82...although that would have been great!), this is the movie for you. The score (specifically the Japanese stuff and the French pop song used repeatedly) works well with the imagery, the exception being this really tacky trip hop stuff. There's some interesting things going on here, most notably a picture-within-a-picture (also, unfortunately, twenty-five pictures-within-a-picture) thing (sort of like how people can watch multiple channels at the same time), the layered visuals, and the use of text (unfortunately, in multiple languages). Watching this, it's impossible not to see that it's coming from an auteur and virtuoso. That doesn't mean it's a good movie though. In fact, it's so pretentious and dull, I didn't even want to finish watching it. If not for all the penis, I'm not sure I would have. It's difficult when it doesn't have to be and insipid and vacuous when it shouldn't be. It's a lot closer to Greenaway's The Cook, The Monkey Trainer, His Lover, and the Archbishop (which I remember only as being boring) than Drowning by Numbers or A Zed and Two Noughts (which I loved despite the pretensions). Peter Greenaway's got huge ideas and ambitions, and although there's definitely nothing at all wrong with that, it's exactly what's wrong with The Pillow Book. It's artsy at its most fartsy with the tricks and style suffocating the substance. Frustratingly fartsy!