FeedThe Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
May 17 2009, 9:45pm
The movie that catapulted Peter Greenaway from fucked-up arthouse auteur to fucked-up arthouse auteur *sensation*. Looking at it now, nearly 20 years later, the things that strike me are how comparatively non-"shocking" it is (if it ever was . . . certainly that was its rep at the time, but I don't recall being remotely shocked) and also how astonishingly beautiful it still is. Every single frame is beautifully composed, and the device of the horizontally tracking camera that moves through walls, from kitchen to dining room, still works.
*All* of the design-related devices work, in fact; Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes have aged well, which is to say not at all; the rich colors, elaborate sets, and endlessly-moving background action of the restaurant staff are mesmerizing. So much so that it's sort of irrelevant whether you find the foreground action compelling or not. Is it allegory? Can something that seems to aspire so overtly to its symbolism really be considered allegory?
Surely the actual dichotomy he's setting up here isn't just brutality vs. sensuality, and surely we're not really meant to read it as some sort of political allegory. Though if it is, and we are, then I suppose I can give Greenaway (and Michael Gambon as the Thief, Albert Spica) full credit for going all-out in their presentation.
Helen Mirren has a lot of work to do with her body in this movie, and she doesn't hold back. I don't specifically mean the sex scenes (which are actually quite tame, particularly for an actress who was in Caligula), but rather everything; she has quite a few scenes where Michael Gambon is hauling and/or smacking her around, and equally as many where she & her lover are wedged into a bathroom stall, or a tiny alcove. Not to mention the scene where the couple escapes, still nude, in the back of a panel truck full of rotting meat.
One note: despite being, still, one of the most visually beautiful films ever made, it's still not available on Blu-ray. Worse yet: it's not even in-print on DVD. I mail-ordered a copy from some mom-and-pop website & what I received was a DVD-R bootleg. The menu looks soft & a bit jaggy, but the print itself is decent enough that I don't think it was re-encoded by the bootleggers. But still, Jesus, WTF?
*All* of the design-related devices work, in fact; Jean-Paul Gaultier's costumes have aged well, which is to say not at all; the rich colors, elaborate sets, and endlessly-moving background action of the restaurant staff are mesmerizing. So much so that it's sort of irrelevant whether you find the foreground action compelling or not. Is it allegory? Can something that seems to aspire so overtly to its symbolism really be considered allegory?
Surely the actual dichotomy he's setting up here isn't just brutality vs. sensuality, and surely we're not really meant to read it as some sort of political allegory. Though if it is, and we are, then I suppose I can give Greenaway (and Michael Gambon as the Thief, Albert Spica) full credit for going all-out in their presentation.
Helen Mirren has a lot of work to do with her body in this movie, and she doesn't hold back. I don't specifically mean the sex scenes (which are actually quite tame, particularly for an actress who was in Caligula), but rather everything; she has quite a few scenes where Michael Gambon is hauling and/or smacking her around, and equally as many where she & her lover are wedged into a bathroom stall, or a tiny alcove. Not to mention the scene where the couple escapes, still nude, in the back of a panel truck full of rotting meat.
One note: despite being, still, one of the most visually beautiful films ever made, it's still not available on Blu-ray. Worse yet: it's not even in-print on DVD. I mail-ordered a copy from some mom-and-pop website & what I received was a DVD-R bootleg. The menu looks soft & a bit jaggy, but the print itself is decent enough that I don't think it was re-encoded by the bootleggers. But still, Jesus, WTF?
