Review of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) by Kevin M — 12 Feb 2009

Beautiful yet demented, erotic yet chaste, horrifying yet classy; hilarious, stomach churning food porn and a whole other mess of contradictions add up to a sublime entertainment. In Peter Greenaway's most accessible and most satisfying film, he examines the essential links between food and sex, sex and death, and death back to food again. On a subconscious level, filmmaking and cooking are intertwined, and the characters of this surreal yet believable universe also inhabit many sets of contradictions. As Michael Gambon's thuggish Cockney gourmet says during one of his many, many drunken rants: "You've gotta put clashing elements together, like ham and pineapples. That's artistry.".

The opening shot is a stunner, as we literally travel up from Hell into an opulent French restaurant awash in red. That color shows up time and time again to denote emotional extremes, be it from the lighting or Helen Mirren's dress changing color as she passes through the door of a restroom. Lots of Kubrickian lateral movement on dolly tracks, invisible transitions "through walls", and symmetrical compositions. The story is wafer thin and merely a nail on which to hang amazing performances and impossibly gorgeous images that will sear themselves into your subconscious. Even the grotesquely weird yet poetic violence is made palatable by artful framing and lack of detail. Just enough information is given to let our imaginations run rampant.

Not for all tastes, like the rich French cuisine gobbled down nightly by Gambon and his crew of flunkies as they sit before a Rembrandt reproduction like a grotesque parody of "haute couture". Its visual perfection is undeniable, but the excesses of the story might put off some viewers. Those with open minds and a high tolerance for the bizarre will find a sumptuous feast fit for the most refined palates.