Pretentiously morbid and opulently crafted. Not for me.
Not a pretty sight
Whether you come to this flick because you admire architecture, dig Peter Greenaway, or love Rome (all of which I do), The Belly of an ARchitect will leave a bitter taste - and not just because the architect in question is suffering from a pain in the gut that makes him spew up nasty bile every now and then.
The script is a mess. What might have been an interesting conceit is tangled up in nonsense. All the Italians are corrupt (why they seem to conspire against the hapless American is never clear; if it's merely thievery, why are they so obvious?), the architect's wife is a bit dim, the architect an arrogant American without the sense to ask for an audit when his precious exhibition is being ripped off. But he must be some kind of magician: he can make photo copies even when placing the original right side up on the glass ...
Greenaway has managed to acquire amazing locations (the Victor Emaneul Memorial, Baths of Caracalla, Pantheon) and one wishes he had filled them with a compelling story; but pretty pictures don't make a movie, and this quasi-operatic tale doesn't wash. For all the talk of meat and blood, this one is as cold as cadaver.
A Romantic In Extremis
Greenaway's "Belly of An Architect" is visually stunning and philosophically entertaining. It is about an idealistic American architect whose life swiftly declines at the precise moment he attains his life's ambition. It is about idealism and the worship of forms in contrast to the flux and chaos of life and death. It is about the eternal slipping through the fingers of mortal man. It is about reaching for the heights and developing stomach cancer.
"I try very hard never to distort or dissemble," says Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins), a draughtsman of considerable talent contracted by a certain Mrs. Herbert (Janet Suzman) to make 12 drawings for her absent husband of their English estate. Part of that contract involves Mr. Neville taking his pleasure, and that pleasure is Mrs. Herbert. While Mr. Neville aims for fidelity in his drawings, infidelity in private is quite another matter. Then the film becomes a cerebral puzzle when objects start appearing mysteriously in the subjects of Mr. Neville's various drawings: a ladder that wasn't there before, a pair of boots standing in a field. Mr. Neville's penchant for realism is stymied by these clues, which may or may not suggest the murder of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Anthony Higgins - Janet Suzman Director(s): Peter Greenaway DVD Release Date: Released the 14 December 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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In Peter Greenaway's 8-1/2 Women (1999), a woman's death propels a bereaved widower and his son into carnal questing, via a harem of idiosyncratic ladies. Similarly, 1985's A Zed and Two Noughts follows the Deuce brothers, zoologists and former Siamese twins, who lose their wives in a bizarre collision--a great swan crashes into a car driven down Swann's Way by one Alba Bewick (translates as "white swan"). The brothers become obsessed with photographing and measuring decay ("by degrees of grief"), from Apple to Zebra, and equally obsessed with voluptuous Alba, who, having lost one leg in the wreck, later has the other removed... perhaps for the sake of symmetry. Greenaway's funny, gruesome, gorgeous "zoo" also features hooker Venus di Milo, arbiter of the monetary... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Brian Deacon - Eric Deacon Director(s): Peter Greenaway DVD Release Date: Released the 10 June 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Few directors polarize audiences like Peter Greenaway, a filmmaker as influenced by Jacobean revenge tragedy and 17th century painting as by the French New Wave. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is both adored and detested for its combination of sumptuous beauty and revolting decadence. A vile, gluttonous thief (Michael Gambon, The Singing Detective) spews hate and abuse at a restaurant run by a stoic French cook (Richard Bohringer, Diva), but under the thief's nose his wife (the ever-sensuous Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect) conducts an affair with a bookish lover (Alan Howard, Strapless). Clothing (by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Gaultier) changes color as the characters move from room to room. Nudity, torture, rotting meat, and Tim ... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Bohringer - Michael Gambon - Helen Mirren Director(s): Peter Greenaway DVD Release Date: Released the 13 March 2001 This item is currently not available.
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Peter Greenaway is a master at visuals. Most Greenaway films, such as "A Zed and two Noughts", "The Draughtsmen's Contract" and "The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover", appear like a moving painting with vivid color and dazzling images. Although all are great films, their plots can be confusing with the lack of common dialogue and character development. 8 1/2 Women does have some very nice visuals, though less intense compared to his previous works, and a story line that is much easier to follow than prior films, with a bit more character development, but still peculiar circumstance. The film's focus is the unusual relationship between a newly widowed husband, Phillip(John Standling) and his son, Storey(Matthew Delamere). After a viewing of Fellini's 8 1/2, the father and son become... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Standing - Matthew Delamere - Vivian Wu - Toni Collette - Amanda Plummer Director(s): Peter Greenaway DVD Release Date: Released the 19 August 2003 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers) continues to delight and disturb us with his talent for combining storytelling with optic artistry. The Pillow Book is divided into 10 chapters (consistent with Greenaway's love of numbers and lists) and is shot to be viewed like a book, complete with tantalizing illustrations and footnotes (subtitles) and using television's "screen-in-screen" technology. As a child in Japan, Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt reads a list of "beautiful things" from a 10th-century pillow book. As she gets older, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) looks for a lover with calligraphy skills to continue the annual... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vivian Wu - Ewan McGregor Director(s): Peter Greenaway DVD Release Date: Released the 15 December 1998 Usually ships in 24 hours
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