The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover on DVD (1989)

blunderwood from East Sussex , 02/02/2004

Peter Greenaway is a unique filmmaker and this is one of his most accessible works. He creates films which exist in worlds organised by strange systems: numerical sequences, colour coded scenary etc.

"The Cook..." is a tragic tale of infidelity, murder and revenge. Michael Gambon plays the Thief in pleasantly obnoxious style while Helen Mirren is embittered and smoldering until the very end.

This film contains some moments of brutal violence which some may not enjoy. Nevertheless it is visually exquisite and stylistically in a different league to your average film. And isn't Greenaway a British director?

One for every connoisseur.

  24 out of 25 people found this review helpful

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ThomasKus from Gloucester [Highly rated reviewer] , 22/01/2004

Greenaways masterpiece is not an easy film by any standards but perhaps more accessible than some of his other work. Unlike conventional films this is more like a cinematic composition of stunning sets with varying colour themes and music, exquisite acting and sweeping camera work. Yes, there is a lot of sex, violence and disgusting behaviour but it is in keeping with the characters and the story and not simply gratuitous.

Make sure you?re in the right frame of mind to watch this ? relaxed and unhurried, put the volume up or the headphones on and be prepared for an unusual but great movie.

Chances are you will either love it or hate it but there is only one way to find out ? watch it yourself!

  12 out of 13 people found this review helpful

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A customer from London , 11/08/2005

I found this movie very very strange indeed - in parts quite gruesome, just weird.

  5 out of 6 people found this review helpful

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A customer from Leamington , 12/08/2004

The film is a kind of sawn off Jacobean tragedy of revenge. A loutish gangster, (Michael Gambon) and his wife (Helen Mirren) eat every night at Le Hollandais, where the chef makes fine creations for him and his thuggish associates. The wife sees a quiet librarian across the crowded room and together they steal off to the loo for a quickie. This happens every night until the inevitable discovery happens and you can more or less guess the rest.

Greenaway?s obsession with rot and bodily effluent though not done to the same extent as in his earlier Z & 2 OOs will certainly disgust some people. And there is lots of nudity which will put off some others.

As always with Greenaway the look of the film is everything. The set designs range from garish to opulent with rich saturated colours that change, not just in the d?cor but in the actor?s wardrobe, to signal different areas of the restaurant, the dining area, the loo, the kitchen, the vegetable store. The director?s art college education really makes it presence known as some of the scenes seem as beautifully and artificially composed as a still life painting.

The film is worth seeing simply for the sets and the colours and for a bonus you get brilliant acting as you would expect from such a galaxy of big names. As for the film as a whole, well, when you take away the flash there doesn?t seem to be an awful lot left. Greenaway always seems to me to be a bit like Jack Horner sitting in the corner with his pie pulling out nice shiny plums and asking us all to agree with his own assessment of himself. I?m not sure that I do.

  4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

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KOF from London , 17/08/2008

As much attention was paid by the director to the set and choreography of this film as was paid to the dark tale of a brutally unequal and destructive relationship betwen a gangster and his lover in the creation of this viciously excessive drama. In spite of this, the entire cast's heroic acting successfully vies with the sumptuous and overblown yet richly mesmerising background to provide a compelling and vile account of intemperate greed, lust and nightmarish violence which promises to shock as well as to entertain viewers. Not at all for the faint-hearted.

  1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

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