So many, many people miss the point.
The jarring contrast between the lush backgrounds, lovely set design and gorgeous soundtrack and the hideous violence is the whole point. Bountiful riches smothering a rotten core of moral decay. Exploitation and brutal manipulation seething beneath a thin veneer of respectability. The Elephant in the living-room that no-one talks about. The gangster's leer at the heart of the lipstick-smeared culture of greed.
This is an unforgiving film with a starkly *un*pretentious *political* message. It is propaganda, and should be seen as such.
Structured visual allegory with narrative footnotes. Meaning that each character is a *symbol*, not a character. The Thief is the filth-obsessed brute force necessary to power the engines of capitalism, the restaurant full of patient diners ignoring the hideous monster at its centre are the consumers of late 20th Century, the Cook is the intelligentsia attempting to construct society, The Thief's Wife, the choirboy and the other victims are various stages of Innocence being abused by the system and (for the sake of narrative) Her Lover is Mercury, the lightning bolt that brings Change. All very simple. Far too simple for an ordinary movie, really. Not exactly "entertainment".
The volume in everything in this movie is turned UP. It sounds and looks pretentious, yes, but this film is an exercise in *stripping away* unnecessary detail, not *adding* it as in previous Greenaways, to sharpen the knives to an exquisite edge, to flay the rotting flesh from the 80's paradigm's bones. It's a polemic, a rant, a scorched-earth blaze of cold rage.
But is it a good movie? Objectively? No. Not really.
It's too long, it's stomach-churningly violent, the lover characters are subtle and clash with the rest of the cast bizarrely and th colour-changing between environments, whilst stylistically clever, is disjointed and meaningless.
But is it a good series of perfectly lit photographs strung loosely together through time for neatnesses sake whose visual structure lends deep and powerful meaning to the central message of the film, that the only hope is that Innocence can triumph over Brute Greed? Subjectively? YES.
But... should one DO such things? SHOULD one make such movies? Who knows? Who cares? But... IS Capitalism REALLY that horrible? Did we really have to sit through all that filth just to be told that our social systems have consequences that we are not only completely aware of but are quite happy to ignore even if these consequences are blaring in our ears, interrupting our enjoyment of the choice sweetmeats the same system bestows on us so long as we let it do it's thing? Loaded question. And those who think they already know the answer will love or hate this film accordingly.
Me? I liked the costumes. And the dialogue. And the imagination. And I *respect* a film-maker who openly despises Evil. As for the political subtext... on some days I can forgive it and on others I can't, but one cannot expect to go looking at works of art that people have made and *never* see something that disturbs you. Artists have things to say.
Certainly he says it very loud, but that doesn't bother me. I have no problem with the grinding of axes, so long as the axe-grinder knows which end of the axe he's grinding...
The jarring contrast between the lush backgrounds, lovely set design and gorgeous soundtrack and the hideous violence is the whole point. Bountiful riches smothering a rotten core of moral decay. Exploitation and brutal manipulation seething beneath a thin veneer of respectability. The Elephant in the living-room that no-one talks about. The gangster's leer at the heart of the lipstick-smeared culture of greed.
This is an unforgiving film with a starkly *un*pretentious *political* message. It is propaganda, and should be seen as such.
Structured visual allegory with narrative footnotes. Meaning that each character is a *symbol*, not a character. The Thief is the filth-obsessed brute force necessary to power the engines of capitalism, the restaurant full of patient diners ignoring the hideous monster at its centre are the consumers of late 20th Century, the Cook is the intelligentsia attempting to construct society, The Thief's Wife, the choirboy and the other victims are various stages of Innocence being abused by the system and (for the sake of narrative) Her Lover is Mercury, the lightning bolt that brings Change. All very simple. Far too simple for an ordinary movie, really. Not exactly "entertainment".
The volume in everything in this movie is turned UP. It sounds and looks pretentious, yes, but this film is an exercise in *stripping away* unnecessary detail, not *adding* it as in previous Greenaways, to sharpen the knives to an exquisite edge, to flay the rotting flesh from the 80's paradigm's bones. It's a polemic, a rant, a scorched-earth blaze of cold rage.
But is it a good movie? Objectively? No. Not really.
It's too long, it's stomach-churningly violent, the lover characters are subtle and clash with the rest of the cast bizarrely and th colour-changing between environments, whilst stylistically clever, is disjointed and meaningless.
But is it a good series of perfectly lit photographs strung loosely together through time for neatnesses sake whose visual structure lends deep and powerful meaning to the central message of the film, that the only hope is that Innocence can triumph over Brute Greed? Subjectively? YES.
But... should one DO such things? SHOULD one make such movies? Who knows? Who cares? But... IS Capitalism REALLY that horrible? Did we really have to sit through all that filth just to be told that our social systems have consequences that we are not only completely aware of but are quite happy to ignore even if these consequences are blaring in our ears, interrupting our enjoyment of the choice sweetmeats the same system bestows on us so long as we let it do it's thing? Loaded question. And those who think they already know the answer will love or hate this film accordingly.
Me? I liked the costumes. And the dialogue. And the imagination. And I *respect* a film-maker who openly despises Evil. As for the political subtext... on some days I can forgive it and on others I can't, but one cannot expect to go looking at works of art that people have made and *never* see something that disturbs you. Artists have things to say.
Certainly he says it very loud, but that doesn't bother me. I have no problem with the grinding of axes, so long as the axe-grinder knows which end of the axe he's grinding...