This is one of my favorite films of all time. I don't know if its one of the best but it doesn't matter since the film is simply good enough to simply demand your attention.
The plot is simple enough, the course of a week during which a bunch of thugs take over restaurant and force its cook to prepare meals for them as proof of their good taste. Meanwhile the Thief's wife begins a clandestine affair with one of the other regulars, which is destined for a bad end.
Clearly artificial and allegorical I'm hard pressed to tell you what the film is "about" really. I don't think it's possible to come up with a definite answer short of having director Peter Greenaway tell us, and even then I could argue that would be wrong. Why do I think that the film isn't about anything? because I've seen it at least a dozen times and its never once played out the same way for me. Sometimes its a wild comedy of manners, other times a horror film, others an allegory, yet another time its pretentious trash. Its all of these things and none of them. Greenaway gives us clues and references, from references to pieces of art, to changing color schemes, to biblical parallels to others that refer to Thatcher's England. The film is packed with ideas that aren't always clear, even when you've seen the film numerous times. The film is about everything and nothing, its one of the few Greenaway films that touches the heart as well as the head (we feel for the lovers), which says a great deal (Greenaway's films more often then not are intellectually exciting but emotionally cold). I think the film is a masterpiece and a touchstone for where the viewer is.
Recommended whole heartily, with the proviso that the film has a graphic nature (violence and nudity) and is ultimately disturbing.
The plot is simple enough, the course of a week during which a bunch of thugs take over restaurant and force its cook to prepare meals for them as proof of their good taste. Meanwhile the Thief's wife begins a clandestine affair with one of the other regulars, which is destined for a bad end.
Clearly artificial and allegorical I'm hard pressed to tell you what the film is "about" really. I don't think it's possible to come up with a definite answer short of having director Peter Greenaway tell us, and even then I could argue that would be wrong. Why do I think that the film isn't about anything? because I've seen it at least a dozen times and its never once played out the same way for me. Sometimes its a wild comedy of manners, other times a horror film, others an allegory, yet another time its pretentious trash. Its all of these things and none of them. Greenaway gives us clues and references, from references to pieces of art, to changing color schemes, to biblical parallels to others that refer to Thatcher's England. The film is packed with ideas that aren't always clear, even when you've seen the film numerous times. The film is about everything and nothing, its one of the few Greenaway films that touches the heart as well as the head (we feel for the lovers), which says a great deal (Greenaway's films more often then not are intellectually exciting but emotionally cold). I think the film is a masterpiece and a touchstone for where the viewer is.
Recommended whole heartily, with the proviso that the film has a graphic nature (violence and nudity) and is ultimately disturbing.