Peter Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers

Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers is a unique, handcrafted diadem of cinematic pomp. It glitters and sparkles from its impeccable acting, its imaginative production design, and as is usually true in Greenaway's work, its memorable cinematography under difficult conditions. I enjoyed the film the way I might delight in a re-opened 19th century amusement park, or a hall of wonders. At every turn there was an amazing composition of characters, setting and mise en scene. Many sequences were shot in warm yellow or coral filtration like candlelight spilling on paintings from the Romantic Age. Other scenes, often coastal locales, used a cooler and greyer palette underlining the films central mood of inevitable loss. His humor is of the blackest, and yet it's set amongst a cast of sympathetic and lusty adventurers as they trip casually through a psychic land of mayhem and murder. I should add that Michael Nyman's score is also a direct accomplice to the films power and at times mirth. Ah such a romp.

A brief synopsis might explain that the film deals with three generations of women in a single family (all named identically) who become empowered to correct their marriages by murder most foul. However, that is merely the armature from which the most interesting flesh of the story hangs. A lascivious yet kind Coroner and his bravely precocious son find themselves protective of the three women as battle lines are drawn among the denizens of their small beach village. Somewhere amongst this action are unearthed numbered clues, mementos, incidentals and layers of games. Each game more complex and odder than its predecessor, eventually taking on the prize of mortality itself.

DROWNING BY NUMBERS, though planted in a wickedly perverse universe, is a pleasure to watch. None of the dour Germanic overtones infect Peter Greenaway's almost mythical tale, complete with its surreal and symbolic visions. Instead, his artistic eye and immovable subjective faith in enigmas are given almost total freedom, for which we are entirely glad. From the rowdy carnality and hedonism of the film's chosen family I continually found the story buoyed by the bemused character of the eldest Cissy, played by Joan Plowright. She is the perfect antipode to any comedic stereotype, carrying a sincere grace about her even when confronted by the process of retribution which runs down through her daughter and grand-daughter. She acquaints herself almost regally with the considerations which are raised about family, marriage, love, sex, aging, loyalty. The camaraderie of these sensitive and sensual women is a joy to watch, though you would not want to cross them. Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richarson are the younger of the women, each bringing a professional tact and commitment to their parts. I say commitment, because like the equally famous Greenaway film, THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER, total nudity and erotic situations are numerous and compromising. Bernard Hill as the Coroner is the hedonistic erstwhile lover of all the women, if only in his inescapable desire. He's an actor with a large range and plays his lusty country gentleman in a perfect pitch.

I will have to leave critical analysis alone. Enthusiasms are all I can honestly offer. Though certainly metaphor is abounding and many social ills are addressed beneath the cloak of satire, to look too deeply into this film for hidden messages of large intellectual importance could take away from some of its earthy, ribald fun. Think of listening to The Dresden Dolls' album "Yes Virginia," on your way home from seeing some art galleries on a Friday when you played hookie from work (or school)--that's a bit like the feeling of this movie.

Peter Greenaway is a smart man, a literate man, and an auteur who arguably stands with only Derek Jarman atop the list of indispensable British "art movie" directors. It is something of a head-scratcher if the viewer approaches it looking for traditional sets of surface narrative and meaning, but let yourself be swept along by the shenanigans in this world of numbers and you're in for a pleasure.

.