Drowning by Numbers

One woman in three bodies. Games about death, with death as a rule, and as a consequence. Life as this game and vice versa. The scoring of the game, the ruling of the script according to numbers. Sequential skipping through the numbers as a way of adumbrating the game to tell a story.

Another masterpiece from Greenaway, his most accessible in my view. But that makes it a lesser work compared to his others, because the story is perfectly comprehensible. One can see how his notion of structured visual allegory with narrative footnotes starts to emerge here. The latest I have seen at this writing is The Pillow Book where this is all so much more elaborate and integrated into the narrative. But this film still charms. I wish I could personally thank the financier.

Life's a game, death's a game. This playful little movie is all about games. If you're not a gaming-type person, you might not find this, umm, diverting.

The thoroughly surreal and tongue-in-cheek tone of the movie keeps us from taking it very seriously...all of which is for the best, since that way we don't confuse the plot with serious drama; the games the women play tend toward the homicidal....

Wittgenstein famously pointed out that there are all manner of games in the world--there's no tight set of identifying characteristics; games all have, at most, a "family resemblance". Greenaway has here collected numerous far-flung relatives in this odd family. You'll no doubt appreciate some of them more than others, Well, we all inevitably have favorites.

DbN and Prospero's Books (two very different movies!) are my favorite Greenaway films.

I was ready to shut this movie off during the opening credits. A young girl skips rope as she names the stars in the cadence of her count 13-Rigel, 14- get it? Now you'd think most filmmakers would pick up this little symbol at a point near its end, but not Peter Greenaway. We see the whole count. I nearly fell asleep before the movie title appeared.

I'm glad I didn't. This is one weird movie, but a charming entertainment. The counting to 100 in the rope-jump prefigures the appearance of the numbers one through a hundred in sequence throughout the movie. It's fun after a while to see if you can spot them or to predict their appearance.

The plot, such as it is, centers around three women with the same name who all drown their husbands, with the assistance of the coroner, an inveterate gamesman. The other main character is the coroner's bizarre number-obsessed son, who narrates, and actually does most of the numbering that marks the progress of the film. The main characters are all utterly amoral.

Does the plot really matter? It's a black comedy, and a puzzle. The people are real, but they aren't. "The play's the thing". The film is odd and personal. I loved it. You may not. It reminded me of TV's famous "The Prisoner".

Peter Greenaway wrote and directed. The script is dryly amusing. The visual presentation is poetic and rich with symbols. The camera angles are unusual, befitting the material photographed. The landscape is ethereal, not unlike Prospero's Island in Greenaway's The Tempest. Except maybe for Zefferelli, nobody creates a richer texture of visual imagery.

For me, the only disappointment was an unsatisfying ending. I guess this was how it had to end. I couldn't come up with a better solution to the puzzle, but I wanted the characters to fare better than they did, and the fate of the boy-narrator seemed unduly harsh.

Still and all, it was Greenaway's game, and that's how he played it. I'm not sure why anyone financed this film, because the potential audience is small.

But I sure liked it.

I saw the movie at a local art-house cinema, and was instantly converted to the church of Greenaway/Nyman. I raved so much about it that my philestine friends finally agreed to rent it.

Of course, the rented version was pan-n-scanned. It was truly awful. As bad as the original was good. Much of the Greenawaynian charm is his flair for composing scenes visually. Pan-scanning deprives you of almost all the fun. Besides whoever did the pan scanning didn't get the spot-the-numbers game. Several were lost out of frame.

Don't bother renting it on VHS. Maybe the DVD will get it right. Until then, ask the Brattle or your local cinema paradiso to show you it in all its glory.

In "Drowning by Numbers" Peter Greenaway managed to find the thin line between the art movies and the audience-pleasing comedies. His other films, like "The Draughtsman's Contract" are visually arresting but very hard to understand and to stay with. I worried a little bit before I sat down watching this film but I spent a cheerful evening in front of the TV. Hilarious dialogues and monologues are matched with Sacha Vierny's beautiful photography and Greenaway's distinctive and moody sets and atmosphere. Plowright, Stevenson and Richardson are equally terrific, not to mention Bernard Hill as the corny coroner. The debuting Jason Edwards is one of the highlights of the film. His strange behaviour and explanations of the newly invented games are the funniest moments in the film. The final scene is one of the most bizarre closing ever put on screen. Unfortunately, this film was faded by the other commercially successful English films of the late 80s, early 90s (e.g. The Fish Called: Wanda), but if you have the opportunity to watch this film don't miss it. It's highly recommended.