mauro volvox Another art film, another two hours of my life wasted...The only "good" thing in this vile pile of crap is the nudity of a 40- something actress....besides that, there is nothing else in this waste of celluloid that has any intrinsic value.The acting is painful, the constant yelling of the "Thief" is migraine- inducing, the music is irritating, the depiction of food is nauseating and, oh boy, the film is talky, too talky...The violence is on par with Z-grade torture-porn film.But, hey, "artists", the artsy-fartsy pedant crowds see this heap of steaming manure as some sort of allegory, a metaphor for God knows what. Be warned that watching it will cause a massive destruction of neurons in your brain.

gavin6942 The wife (Helen Mirren) of an oafish restaurant owner (Michael Gambon) becomes bored with her husband and considers an affair with a regular patron (Alan Howard).First thing worth noting is the color scheme, with its bright red, blue, green and white. Not just a clever way to indicate what room the action is in, but a great use of the colors themselves. There is the risk that too much color is garish, but not here. Perhaps the best use of color since "Suspiria".Then, you have the bold nudity, not typical in an English-speaking film. Helen Mirren, fully nude for several minutes? And Alan Howard, flopping in the breeze? You bet. But it is not just nudity for nudity's sake. It really shows how vulnerable these folks are.

Red-Barracuda This is easily Peter Greenaway's most famous film. This is despite, or most probably because, of its somewhat notorious reputation. Whatever the case, this has to be the most accessible film in Greenaway's highly inaccessible filmography. Although this is only a fairly relative statement because, despite having a fairly linear story, this is still very idiosyncratic and odd. It also displays the extremely cold tone that typifies this director's work in general. It could best be described as an art-house film with exploitation film subject matter. It contains all manner of unpleasantness, with physical brutality, humiliation, scatology and cannibalism; while it is sexually very frank with much full-frontal nudity and graphic conversations.So it's a very full-on film content-wise but what makes it very unusual is that it is quite uncommon for this type of material to be presented in quite the way it is here. Its visual style is thoroughly eloquent, with the cinematography of Sacha Vierney being particularly notable. Vierney is perhaps most famous for photographing Greenaway's favourite movie, namely Last Year at Marienbad (1961), a key experimental movie that clearly influenced him in many ways. Like that film, this one looks very lush too, with painterly compositions that are captured in widescreen by the carefully constructed tracking shots. The décor and costuming are both carefully considered, the latter are designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier; both give the film its own self-contained world that is very striking. The other key collaborator is composer Michael Nyman, whose soundtrack is again memorable but heavy going at times, with the high-pitched singing being a little hard to take. The actors do good work, although they are playing types as opposed to realistic characters; Michael Gambon certainly is in his element chewing up the scenery in his role as the obnoxious thief and Helen Mirren makes an impression in the tough role of his downtrodden wife.This is a film I like but with reservations. As always, Greenaway's style is very hard to fully embrace. The unpleasant aspects are slightly more sickening in some ways when presented in his deep-frozen style. While I believe that there is seemingly an allegory on Thatcherism in here apparently, I continually fail to detect it myself, so I simply take its events at face value. This isn't such a bad thing, as I do appreciate the self-contained world Greenaway has created and I do like his commitment to visual ideas. It's certainly a real oddity. It goes without saying but this film is categorically not one for everyone. It's easy to see why people hate it. But it will reward those that can take Greenaway's eccentricities.

zetes Gorgeous, insane and utterly brilliant. I'd seen a few Peter Greenaway films prior to this, but none of them have particularly worked for me. This one just blew me away. Michael Gambon plays a crook who has bought a share of a fancy French restaurant. This means he can spend every night sitting in the middle of the restaurant loudly barking his particular brand of rudeness at his minions (including Tim Roth and Ciaran Hinds) and his put-upon wife (Helen Mirren). Mirren is so sick of her life she wanders off to the bathroom to have anonymous sex with a book-reading customer (Alan Howard). After a few nights of this, Gambon catches on and, well, the results aren't that pretty. Two things in particular stand out in this one: first, Gambon. Holy crap, he is one of the most brazen bastards ever to be seen (and especially heard) in the cinema. The performance is utterly brilliant. I hate this guy, don't get me wrong, but I could listen to him yell for hours and I wouldn't stop laughing. Second: the production design. It's one of the neatest looking films I've ever seen. Shot on an elaborate sound stage, the restaurant (and its exterior) are color coded. It's brilliant. My favorite bit of it are the urinals in the men's room: a shoulder-high pillar in the very center of the bathroom with the urinals on each side, so the urinators have to stare right into their neighbors eyes as they pee. The story has an allegorical meaning, apparently about Thatcher, but at this point that's only a historical footnote. The film holds up great with all its nuttiness. My only minor complaint: the last sequence is a tad too straightforward. But, really, I absolutely loved this. It's one of the best films I've seen in a while.