El cocinero, el ladrón, su esposa y su amante

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?

My introduction to Greenaway was `Prospero's Books,' which I rate very highly. I next saw `The Pillow Book,' which also was magic. I now delve into this earlier work, which is before Greenaway became master of overlayed windows. And also before he developed (at least in the two films mentioned) a clean sense of layering allegory.

In this early film the sense of allegory is simplistic, and the notion of narrative is largely abandoned. All in all, this is a cleaner film. Greenaway's fulcrum is the creation of a massive clockworks kitchen with dozens of concurrent, interrelated processes. Everything revolves around this, or more precisely the vision of this. Around this center, we see both vile and sublime forces acting on the kitchen, which is a sort of metalevel over the world from which creation emanates.

I suppose many will remember some of the more disturbing incidental images. Not me. I'll remember that extraordinary kitchen.

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.

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.

'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover' is a film about politics, cannibalism, vomit, love, death, betrayal, and torture. 'The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover' is part black comedy, part crime thriller, part horror, part film-noir. It is about about four twisted characters and a series of events that play out over an entire week. The owner of a French restaurant, Albert Spica(the thief), occupies it daily in order to stuff his face and beat on the innocent bystanders that surround him and cannot touch him. The owner of the restaurant(the cook) constantly watches in awe as Albert Spica humiliates everyone and talks and talks and talks, yet says nothing. The thief's wife, Georgina(his wife), is beaten, raped, and humiliated every day by the thief. She falls in love with another man at another table, Michael(her lover), and begins to have a rather passionate affair with him. What results is one of the most outrageous and bizarre films I've ever seen.

Peter Greenaway has created a film that is unlike anything that has ever been made before. It is a film that is so disgusting and dark and tasteless, and yet so beautiful and intelligent and fresh that it must be seen to be believed. All of the performances are unforgettable, especially Helen Mirren as the wife, in a heart wrenching performance. Michael Gambon is absolutely terrifying as the thief. People can discuss the political implications that the film implies all they want. I really don't care about that stuff though. Even if that's what the film is about, it isn't why I love it. I love it because it challenges me and a way a challenging film should.

The attention to detail in the set-pieces depict the one pertaining to the outrageous and decadent nature of our time and the times in which we live where the thief consumes everything and is wasteful. As a result, there is a genuine sense of true horror throughout the film. The graphic violence and sex only add the the dark nature of the depiction of a world, long destroyed by the greedy punks that have overrun the world. The punks in this film are much older than the ones that are usually depicted, and we the post-apocalyptic world outside for many brief glimpses in which there is a lot of fog, smoke, grime, and filth. We really get a sense that the world that is depicted in this film was once truly beautiful and open to possibility, and the fact that it is a world that is long gone makes the film far more tragic than we would usually expect, especially one with such grand texture and such a dark sense of humor.

This is the kind of film that reminds me that people in the film industry can still make intelligent, smart, and brilliant films without having to pile on the excess. The film works because it is not only effective, but it is also original storytelling. The film's use of it's set design only amplifies the way it is presents and gives the film even more meaning with it's vibrant colors and the way that each set piece in the entire film represents a different color of the rainbow. The music by Michael Nyman is simply one of the most chilling and unforgettable scores I've heard in a film. It only enhances the beauty of the film though.

While the film is certainly not for everyone, especially children(although it won't be easy for them to view it given it's NC-17 rating), this film is for the kind of adult audience who likes to think and not just be shown something that will waste their time. The content is really tame compared the garbage that is allowed to be played on public television these days anyway. For people who want to be challenged and shown a film that will make them think about the world in a different way than they normally do, It's a must see. This is one of my personal favorite films.