Blake gives an elusive score to a criminally neglected film.
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| "Do you like my beard? And do you like that we match? Do you like my heavy accent? No?" |
I think we can all agree that the plentiful
annals of the Netflix streaming library are the textbook definition of
“hit-and-miss”. Odds are they won’t have the films you’re looking for, but if a
sudden overabundance of Food Network content is your bag, then game on. The
searches sometimes seem to go on forever, but every once in a while you’ll come
across a forgotten gem that introduces you to a film with the capacity to redefine
what we view as cinema. You get introduced to a filmmaker who embodies the
auteur theory as if it was based on his memoirs. I’m talking about Peter
Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover. If there
ever was a film that deserved this site’s highest rating, this is it. So here
it comes: Number one, with a bloody bullet.
From the very first frame, this feels like
Theater (yes, with a capital T): Bombastic, brimming with atmospheric artifice,
larger than life, over the top, and I mean all of those things in the best
sense, with the utmost affection. The sets make no attempt at creating realism,
the cinematography by the brilliant Sacha Vierny is colorful and surreal, and
the music by the gifted Michael Nyman sets the stage for an opera. All of it is
brought together by four towering performances from the eponymous title
characters.
Helen Mirren is positively ravishing,
exuding sensuous vulnerability as the Wife. Her Lover, played with calm
confidence and intelligence by Alan Howard, brings sly humor and understanding
to a role that requires his total silence for the first third of the film’s
runtime. Richard Bohringer’s Cook is their confidant as they begin a romance in
complete and utter defiance of a frothing villain who ranks in the upper
echelon’s of cinema’s ultimate bad guys.
This brings me to Michael Gambon’s
performance as the Thief, which is the stuff of legend. If you come into this
only knowing him as the guy who replaced Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore in
the Harry Potter franchise, you are in for the shock of your ever-loving
existence. This is one of the most cold-blooded, dick-swinging, profanely
absurd, repugnant characters ever created. To see Gambon in this role is to
live in a perpetual state of awe and sick wonder. If there is such a thing as a
human train wreck that you can’t look away from, Gambon is both the train and
its psychotic conductor, steering himself and all around him into hopeless
oblivion with vindictive abandon. He commands every corner of the screen for
every second that he is on it. Just when you think he can’t possibly become a
more horrendous human being, he tops himself and resets the bar. That he didn’t
receive an Oscar nomination for this performance is nothing short of a
travesty.
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| "Well then, fork you!!!" |
To know the title of the film is to know
the story, but only by experiencing The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her
Lover can you succumb the completely unique spell it weaves. Films like
this come along once or twice a decade. Peter Greenaway is a master of the
medium, creating each moment and nuance as if it were spun directly from the
thread of inspiration, but never directing so closely that he upstages his own
carefully set stage. All of the technical and story elements conspire for
perfection, and this is one of the only times I can say it was achieved. There
is not a frame that doesn’t work, not a note that feels out of place, not one
second where Greenaway loses his grip on our attention. Simply put, this is a
masterpiece.
When the film is not compelling knowing grins
from the audience with Greenaway’s impeccable dialogue, it’s getting nods of
appreciation for the meticulously planned tracking shots that will sometimes
include as many as three wardrobe changes for the actors, seamlessly integrated
through razor-sharp editing. When Greenaway isn’t serenading us with grandiose
and hypnotic imagery, he is assaulting us with a full frontal sexual audacity
that was unheard of in 1989. By the time it’s all over, all we can do is grin
and sigh with gratitude. We’ve been thrown for a loop, straight into the
heavens, and I’m still looking for the ground.
Footnote: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife,
and Her Lover is still available in high definition on Netflix streaming.
If you haven’t yet seen it, why are you still reading? Go watch it! NOW!
10/10 -Blake O. Kleiner