christopher-underwood
This is a fearsome, frightening, full frontal extravaganza from true artist, Peter Greenaway. Michael Gambon plays the 'Thief' as a ghastly, gangland supremo with the largest and foulest gob in cinema. Helen Mirren plays the abused and manhandled 'Wife' and is probably her greatest performance. There are many times when the outrageousness of Gambon's character that it is often only the serenity and grounding that Mirren brings that stops this spilling over into farce. It is a brave and open performance not least in her willingness to partake in the scenes of total nudity. Alan Howard as the 'Lover' is fine and his measured and sober performance also helps. Last but not least is the 'Cook' played by Richard Bohinger as a kindly, understanding and long suffering restaurateur who has seen it all before. Well, he might have but this extraordinary feast of fetid stew of nastiness has to be seen to be believed. Michael Nyman's music is a wondrous ingredient, helping to at once make this more bearable but also still rather sinister. This is a work without parallel and whilst you may have to hold your nose and wince a lot, every scene has a beauty, however horrific the goings on. Perhaps, just perhaps a tad too long, is my only reservation.
mauro volvox
Another art film, another two hours of my life wasted...The only "good" thing in this vile pile of crap is the nudity of a 40- something actress....besides that, there is nothing else in this waste of celluloid that has any intrinsic value.The acting is painful, the constant yelling of the "Thief" is migraine- inducing, the music is irritating, the depiction of food is nauseating and, oh boy, the film is talky, too talky...The violence is on par with Z-grade torture-porn film.But, hey, "artists", the artsy-fartsy pedant crowds see this heap of steaming manure as some sort of allegory, a metaphor for God knows what. Be warned that watching it will cause a massive destruction of neurons in your brain.
sharky_55
There is a Cook, whose restaurant has been taken over by the Thief. The setting is transformed by Greenaway into a character itself, and divided chiefly into three segments, and strongly colour coded. We begin in a vast and cavernous kitchen, where the green glow and a soprano boy singing hymns whilst chopping vegetables shows how sacred this area is to Richard, the head cook. Then we dolly sideways through the wall, and the music changes into something more classical, and we enter dining area itself, which is rich and ornate in its décor, but has been invaded by Albert, a British gangster. The richness and warmth takes on an entirely different colour because of his ownership of the establishment. His Wife Georgina takes solace in the bathroom, which is pure white and spotless - in the men's room, the urinals are arranged on some sort of podium, elegant in its composition, but which Albert also desecrates. She hastily shuts the door to prevent a sliver of harsh red light emanating from outside, that seeks to expose her infidelity, and changes clothing and persona so effortlessly in masking her secret affair. Spica is less concerned with this and more with the status of his restaurant, which is towering (watch as Spica enters from the factory-like kitchen, pushing open the immense double doors, and walking out from a column of smoke), and headed by a talented chef, but his class betrays him - he purchases cheap cutlery and descends to thuggish behaviour.Albert Spica is not an entirely despicable character, and this is what makes him interesting. Gambon's performance is dominant, bullying and harsh, but he is not crass - he has led himself to believe that if he owns and dines at a high class restaurant each night, and familiarises himself with its fine and exotic cuisine, that he is better than his breed of gangster. He berates his subordinates for invading this space, for smoking, for having dirty fingernails, for not washing their hands, but is not aware that he is the most toxic presence of them all; a lingering on the silent table as he wanders off to terrorise yet another customer is telling. And yet, he does have his moments of sincerity, and these are sparing, but genuine. He tosses a coin to the same boy he will later torture, and when his drunkenness does not lead to violence and debauchery, he cracks and weeps briefly on the breakdown of his marriage, and his desire for kids and a family, and there is a tiny hint of a better relationship long lost in the past, under the pier. It is disappointing that I am much more convinced by the villain than those that seek to undermine him. The man who bullies and jeers at a more cultured specimen that stole away his wife is more interesting than the cultured man himself. Albert wants to be cultured and refined, but does not want to put the hard yards into it, and such an arduous task like reading is infinitely more difficult than purchasing an entire restaurant. So he bullies, and stuff pages detailing the French Revolution down a man's throat instead of slitting wrists or pulling out teeth. The lovers don't speak a word to each other for quite some time, but we see their urgent passion and escape in the white bathroom and the green tinged kitchen storage, while their naked bodies are bathed in a orange glow, something more intimate. But it is not wholly convincing. I think the most powerful scene should have been the quiet talk on the kitchen island, where the lost love between the Wife and her Lover emanate through her grieving words, and empower her desire for revenge, but is is empty, and vastly overpowered by the final act itself, because it is so disgusting what Spica endures, even as he deserves it tenfold. Another scene illustrates this drawback; the lover's naked embrace soiled by the swinging cuts and carcasses of meat in the chaos of the truck. Then again, the alternative is them lavishing in the meat, which is equally disgusting. Of course, there is much debate about looking past the literal story, and talk of the film criticising Thatcherism. I'm sure there is merit to those if you look closely enough, but I did not think about it much while watching. The cook and his staff, who are supposed to represent the dutiful citizen, the trampled people of the nation, has his own sort of underhanded revenge, where he charges more for food of blackness and death, of vanity in diets, of lustful aphrodisiacs, as if he is sneering and punishing at the decadence of the rich and privileged, but this feels more like a political jab than anything a cook would actually say. Oh, the dialogue is witty and cruel all right; Georgina taunts Albert about knowing where her lover's prick has been, right before shooting him in the head. Misery is heaped upon misery, and it doesn't feel much like anyone has won.
