The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

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🎙️ EPISODE 561: 09.23.22 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟎-𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 RANKING GREENAWAY 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 The most well-known, perhaps, of the Peter Greenaway canon because it A) is by far the most over the top, and B) features by far the most star-studded cast, notably a largely naked Helen Mirren and mostly quiet Tim Roth, but also the fantastic Sir Michael John Gambon as the larger-than-life, titular Thief character, fictional English gangster Albert Spica. The opening scene finds Spica and his thugs rubbing dog feces on the stripped body of a man who owes him money. Thankfully, it's mostly uphill from there, even as the camera literally descends down a ramp into the unreal world of La Hollandais, the restaurant where 90% of the film takes place. This ramp is divided by two constant food delivery trucks full of rotting goods: one seafood and the other meat. We are going somewhere between land and water; it is not of this world.

Food and sex, and how our appetites and our desires and our unavoidable biological functions are all far more closely intertwined then we would want to admit: this is the heart of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Colors are stand-ins for the meanings and feelings toward where a lot of this takes place: bathrooms are white, kitchens are green, dining rooms are red, and the streets are black and blue. Our characters' wardrobes magically change color as they enter and exit these places. All of them save The Lover, whose homely brown suit remains unfazed. The only thing that changes is the length of his tie and the breadth of his vocabulary.

In his fourth encounter with Spica's Wife (Mirren), The Lover (Alan Howard ) actually speaks for the first time. He does everything apart from breaking the fourth wall in this very meta sequence wherein he references his previous silence and also the duration of time passed. It's welcome moments like these that break up some of the vicious scenes throughout, and they are as vicious and as violent as anything Greenaway has or will do on film (rape, child abuse, stabbing a fork into a lady's eye, death by force-feeding, etc.).

I find it funny that Roger Ebert straight up condemned the violence of Blue Velvet and awarded this film a perfect four out of four stars. But when I considered it deeper, it's because this film inhabits the language of a play more than a movie. Nothing about these sequences feel real, most importantly and notably: the literal stage they take place on. And as a result, despite their vileness, it always feels staged. The exquisite lighting, that Greenaway/Vierny hallmark, is of course still present throughout. But it's easily his most claustrophobic film to date (a mode he would only descend into deeper into the next decade). And its odd costuming gives it a feel apart from time, further distancing it from reality. Its obsession with food makes it the spiritual sequel to The Belly of an Architect, but where that movie also worked as a testament to creation in the real world, this feature aims to inhabit some place much darker, insular and nefarious. It's an outstanding picture but not among Greenaway's very best.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 560 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 561B ⫸

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The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a 1989 crime drama art film written and directed by Peter Greenaway, starring Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren and Alan Howard in the title roles. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and France, the film's graphic violence and nude scenes, as well as its lavish cinematography and formalism, were noted at the time of its release. It was released on September 11, 1989.