THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER

  • (Has redeeming facet) Directed and written by Peter Greenaway With Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Alan Howard, and Tim Roth.

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None of these contributions, moreover, can be regarded as wasted: the film is beautifully lit, dressed, upholstered, mounted, acted, shot, scored, and color-coordinated. Why then do I find it so tedious, mechanical, and even conceptually ugly–downright irritating, in fact? Irritation, to be sure, can be an important tool to an avant-garde artist, but only if it serves as a lever, projecting the viewer into something else–a fresh perception or idea, a new definition of beauty or truth or, at the very least, content. But the irritation provoked by The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover leads me nowhere. It’s as if Greenaway had all this artistry, including his own, at his disposal and created nothing but a dead piece of meat, for no reason in particular–unless it’s to express his contempt for his audience.

The movie certainly tries to be shocking and provocative–originally assigned an X by our rating system, it now has no rating at all–yet it is so lacking in soul that despite its audacity it seems like it could have been programmed on a computer. In one of his interviews, Greenaway has suggested that the film is supposed to be an attack on Thatcher England and conspicuous consumption, yet his vision is so doggedly and exclusively upper-class, here and elsewhere in his work, that this strikes me as rather feeble, or at the very least a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. If Thatcher England is the movie’s target, some alternative to Thatcher England–if not explicit, at least implied–is necessary for this attack to have any meaning; but there is not even a hint of such an alternative anywhere in sight. To all appearances, Greenaway thrives on his hatred too much to imagine anything that might exist outside of it.

It’s true that Greenaway hasn’t held us at gunpoint for the preceding 125 minutes, but he’s used enough heavy high-art artillery to cow us into submission nevertheless. Here are his major weapons:

Color-coding. I quote now from the film’s press book, which is so explicit about the film’s intentions that it makes a critic’s interpretation superfluous: “The film features six rooms, each decorated and lit in a different color which symbolizes the kinds of actions which occur in that room: (1) the lavish restaurant dining room, where most of the verbal and physical abuse occurs, is blood-red, symbolizing danger; (2) the kitchen, where the lovers secretly meet, is jungle-green suggesting safety; (3) the parking lot, where the lovers flee, is a cold, ultramarine blue connoting the netherworld; (4) the lovers’ hideaway is gold to represent the golden age of learning and implying an Eden for the re-born innocents; (5) a children’s hospital ward which is the yellow of eggyolk and spring; and (6) the lavatories, where the lovers begin their affair, is the shadowless incandescent white of heaven.” Even Gaultier’s costumes sometimes change color to match the decor as the characters move from one room to another, followed by a laterally tracking camera.