El cocinero, el ladrón, su esposa y su amante

I sat transfixed by this film's ability to become increasingly depraved, always without any redeeming quality whatsoever. We would have left except that I became fascinated by the ability of the director and writer to hit bottom and then keep drilling. The story is familiar enough but there are no protagonists. There really are no antagonists either. Just a bunch of people you care nothing about doing things you don't want to know about. If a friend did this stuff to another human and wanted to tell you about it, you would scream for him/her to stop.

To top it off it has a score by Michael Nyman who had just enough talent to write one bad film score and retreads it for every film that a producer is stupid enough to hire him to score.

With the Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover, Greenaway creates a self-contained world that is both a fabrication and abstraction of reality, but also an extremist reflection (nee, microcosm) of British society in the nineteen-eighties. The characters that he chooses to put forward to the audience as protagonists are archetypes of social and political caricatures that we would find in that particular decade; but heightened to conform to the over-the-top opulence/pestilence found central to the plot. His ability to craft characters and situations that resonate beyond the context of a particular scenario, coupled with his bitterness and unwillingness to conform is what sets him up as a satirist of serious note. He also elevates the film beyond the realms of mere art-house experimentation by fashioning a seriously funny script, which has ample opportunities for central character Albert Spica to prove himself the ultimate charismatic bully - part cockney hard man, part pantomime villain - who is never less than compulsively terrifying.

The plot is a simple construct centred on the theme of revenge and the need for personal freedom. This is mixed in with the socio-political undertones as well as Greenaway's many references to art, theatre, film and literature. It is also elevated by the impeccable cinematic qualities that we hold synonymous with the director's work. Everything here is about pushing things beyond the reasonable limitations; so we have a stunningly intricate set that is both theatrically simplistic, but also as other-worldly as anything from the work of say Gilliam or Jeunet. The costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier scream over-the-top chic, whilst often mirroring the use of colour employed by the production designers. Greenaway even breaks continuity by having Helen Mirren's costumes change colour as she moves through each room of the restaurant, so that we have a green dress in the kitchen, a red dress in the dinning area (inspired by Hitchcock's vertigo no less) and a white dress in the lavatory. It's an audacious move, but one that pays off in the creation of a completely self-contained world; something that is further established by Sacha Vierny's sumptuous cinematography and the wonderfully bombastic music of the ever-excellent Michael Nyman.

Some have clearly found the film's various abstractions problematic (yes, it is theatrical, yes it is occasionally shocking, and yes, it does evolve in a world of its own ostentatious creation). But it's also as artistic a film as you can get; a fact that some here have disputed. The reason that some define this as artistic refers to the use of colour, light and composition. The architecture of the sets too, and the way in which the production designers have chosen to dress them also adds to the artistic stylisation of the film. These factors are important to the narrative, as they are symbolic to what Greenaway is trying to convey, as well as what the characters are all about. Because of this, the design of the film becomes AS important as the framework, if not more so. But this film is more than a mere arty exploration; it's funny and intelligent and features a slew of great performances from a wonderfully eclectic cast. Michael Gambon as the thief Spica gives a grandstand performance to rival his own Phillip Marlow from The Singing Detective; hamming things up spectacularly but still retaining that much needed sense of humanity. The same can be said of the other principals too.

Mirren as the wife exudes a quite and restrained sexuality in what must be her best performance, whist Richard Bohringer as the cook is in some represents the linchpin/catalyst for the film. Elsewhere we find everyone from Tim Roth to Ian Dury popping up to give the film some added character and easily furthering the film's already cult appeal. This was a turning point for Greenaway; a move towards the more expressive, elaborate and self-contained style of film-making found in films like Prospero's Books and the Baby of Maçon and away from the more easy to digest classics like the Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning by Numbers and A Zed and Two Noughts.

I saw this almost fifteen years ago and I still have crystal clear mental images of some of the scenes. The chef at his table in the kitchen, planning his menu: stunning! Put it in a frame, hang it on the wall. In the restaurant scenes, you feel like you're there at the table as the camera pans, without cuts, from one person to another. Our heroes locked in the truck full of rotting meat: horrible, disgusting, perfect. It's a classic purification ritual and it's literally putrid. Greenaway is a genius. My only criticism is a minor one. There is a full frontal nude scene of the wife and her lover, where he is clearly more "relaxed" than he should have been at that moment. I'm a bit disappointed in Greenaway for not showing him at "attention", as he would have been in real life. But then, I guess he would have been accused of making porn. Whatever. This film is not for everyone. My wife didn't see it. I'm sure she would have hated it if she had. For that matter, I can't actually say I liked it, although I consider it a masterwork. But I'm glad I saw it. I'll probably see it again, but not until I can see it on HDTV. Plain old DVD couldn't possibly do it justice. An amazing movie.

The "inside story" of this film is color. Most professional reviewers, with nation-wide media exposure, missed this underlying story element entirely, as did I, until half way through my first viewing. Once I realized the colors of the costumes changed, as the characters passed from room to room, I had to go back and see it again. That's how I got hooked.

During the next viewing, I took note of the creativity and effort that went into the design and construction of the costumes, several times, as each one had to be rendered in several colors. The next time through, I noticed how the color of each room related to the activity that normally took place there, even in the outdoor sequences. With the subsequent viewing, I concentrated on the soundtrack.

From that point on, my awareness of all these elements, served to enhance my appreciation of each character and his or her contribution to the story line. That's when the much talked about "gross-out" aspects of the film seemed to diminish in their ability to shock. In fact, by that point, they seemed to fit much more naturally, although the "NC-17" rating is absolutely appropriate.

This is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and ears of intelligent "adult" viewers. Not to be missed.

Here's the weird secret of this movie: you might actually enjoy it.

Peter Greenaway once commented, "film is too important to be left in the hands of story- tellers." Like almost everything Godard ever said, it's a preposterous statement that ought to be heeded.

As a filmmaker Greenaway has always delighted in puzzle-pictures; from the twin-based symmetry of "A Zed and Two Naughts" to the subliminal counting-game of "Drowning by Numbers" to the mad frames-within-frames of "Prospero's Books" his films resemble nothing so much as one of Graeme Base's wonderful children's' books ("The Eleventh Hour" and "Animalia" for instance) brought to life. Plus, of course, a great deal of nudity and assorted nastiness-- enough to get the works of one of the most original filmmakers living a rather sordid reputation.

So, once you've recovered from the visceral shock of watching "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" the first time, take a step back and watch it again. Yeah, I mean that, do it. Look at it this time as you might a painting by Heironymus Bosch: what appears to be a madman's chaotic hellscape turns out to have a precise allegorical order, and contains such a wealth of symbolism that one viewing cannot possibly be enough to absorb it all. A scene that may seem gratuitously horrific (a naked couple enclosed in a truck full of rotting meat-- probably the moment that jolted me the most) in fact reveals a medievalist's precision (Adam and Eve, cast from Paradise for the First Big Sin, are suddenly subject to the corruption of the flesh). An abstract concept is thus made perfectly and accessibly literal.

Different viewers may prefer to see this movie as religious allegory, political screed, or wry class commentary. The fact is it is all of these, and probably more. The irony of Greenaway's quote above is that he is in fact story-telling on several levels at once. (It's the same irony in the comment that "Seinfeld" was a "show about nothing" when in fact there was more going on per episode than in any other ten sitcoms. It just wasn't "simple.")

In response to criticism over the bloodshed in his movies, Godard once said "It isn't blood, it's red." Meaning: it's all part of a composition, the way color is used on a painter's canvas. It's there for a point, just like Greenaway's explicit yet elegant shocks. With that mind, watch this movie, and enjoy it. It's sharp, gruesomely witty, and as remarkable to look at as almost anything in the Met. If you can handle really thinking, you can handle this, and we all can, can't we?