Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6021 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-11-10
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is both adored and detested for its combination of sumptuous beauty and revolting decadence. Few directors polarise audiences in the same way as Peter Greenaway, a filmmaker as influenced by Jacobean revenge tragedy and 17th-century painting as by the French New Wave. A vile, gluttonous thief (Michael Gambon) spews hate and abuse at a restaurant run by a stoic French cook (Richard Bohringer), but under the thief's nose his wife (the ever-sensuous Helen Mirren) conducts an affair with a bookish lover (Alan Howard). Clothing (by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Gaultier) changes colour as the characters move from room to room. Nudity, torture, rotting meat, and Tim Roth at his sleaziest all contribute the atmosphere of decay and excess. Not for everyone, but for some, essential. --Bret Fetzer

Synopsis
Master director Greenaway (The Pillow Book) outdoes himself with this grisly fairy tale. The thief, Albert Spica, (Gambon) is a gangster, repugnant and boorish, who holds court at the same table in his opulent restaurant every night surrounded by his lackeys (Tim Roth and the late Ian Dury included). When his cultured and repressed wife Georgina (Mirren) becomes magnetically attracted to a solitary diner in the restaurant, the two begin a secret affair under the nose of her dangerous husband. With the help of the restaurant's chef, the time the lovers share is kept secret from the vicious Albert...for a while. Despite the breathtaking production design and artful camera work, this violent, disturbing and very darkly comic work is not for everyone. Those with the stomach for it, however, will reap generous rewards.

Customer Reviews

Lush, surreal and disturbing film masterpiece
Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, The Thief..." is part black comedy and part surreal drama starring the brilliant Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren. As lush and darkly beautiful as some of his other work (Prospero's Books, Drowning By Numbers), "The Cook, The Thief..." has the huge advantage of being a highly watchable film because Greenaway creates a dramatic story that engages you with characters alot more than in some of his other work. The film looks and sounds great throughout, with the keen eye of Sacha Vierny and the surreal touches from Greenaway that bring each scene to life.

Once again, Greenaway has used the music of Michael Nyman to add a whole new dimension to the film. Indeed, Nyman never 'scored' any Greenaway films... the process was infact the other way around, with Greenaway choreographing his scenes to fit with Nyman's music. This film is by far and away the best example of this, and the result is superb. Incorporating some of Nyman's best music, the musical centrepiece of the film is Nyman's 'Memorial', and epic funeral march-like piece, originally composed as a memorial to the victims of the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985.

As well as some great costumes (by Jean Paul Gaultier), set designs and brilliant acting (esp. by Gambon), this film boasts some great dark humour, as well as it's fair share of geniune nastiness. Gambon plays the abominable Albert Spica, a grotesque and vulgar man who abuses and humiliates his wife (Mirren), who seeks refuge with another man, only for Spica to turn his wretched attentions to him, with terrible consequences (can't say any more without giving the end away!)

As a piece of film-making, it's a masterpiece. As a nice cosy film you can sit down to watch on a rainy weekend over and over again, forget it! But for Greenaway's talent, Gambon's acting, Nyman's music, Gaultier's costumes and Sacha Vierny's cinematographic excellence, how many more reasons do you need to go out and buy this film? Great stuff!!

Terrific film, but ......... a poor transfer to DVD
Just read the other reviews and you will get a feel for just how good this film is, but why on earth has the transfer to DVD been done in such a botched manner?

The opening titles illustrate the problem that persists throughout.

The orinigal wide screen presentation has been cropped such that the titles are incomplete.

Within the body of the film one is frequently left watching an empty centre of the original with the speaking characters somewhere off screen.

This brilliant film deserves much better treatment.

A transcendental synthesis of the decadent
**some spoilers**

Greenaway's astonishing masterpiece is packed so full of sumptuously profound imagery and metaphor that it can be enjoyed on several levels. Just go with the flow and enjoy this grotesquely compelling tale of sadism, decadence, illicit love, and jaw-droppingly gruesome retribution, or feel free to explore Greenaway's deeper intentions in giving us such cleverly colour-coded debauchery and stunning juxtaposition.

The hideous Spica (Gambon) - an unholy cross between a Falstaffian trencherman and a vicious gangland thug, wields absolute power in the crimson opulence of the dining area. Like some sacrilegious parody of Christ's last supper, Spica sits centre-table surrounded by a host of well-loved British characters. Look! Isn't that Trigger from Only Fools and Horses (Roger Lloyd-Pack) and there's grandma Royle (Liz Park). Even the late great Ian Dury is in there trying to do wicked things with his rhythm stick, and Gary Olsen, sadly lamented by his 2.4 children. But oh boy, is that /really/ (Dame!) Helen Mirren doing all those naughty things virtually under her abusive husband's nose?

Leaving the blood-red velvet of the dining room, we are swept to the pristine white, almost paradisiacal appearance of the lavatories. Here, the earthiest and most explicit sex acts take place between the furtive lovers (Mirren and Alan Howard), reminding us of one of Spica's diatribes, when he comments on the proximity of the organs of defecation and reproduction. A brutal flash of crimson intrudes upon the white, when Spica bursts in. Seeking refuge elsewhere, the lovers enjoy moments of passion in rooms surrounding the astonishing kitchen, making love amongst hanging game birds and pigs' heads, whilst the albino choir-boy's innocently beautiful voice soars above all. When forced to flee, still naked, the lovers take refuge in a truck full of rotting meat and fish, in a scene strangely reminiscent of the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Freud would have a field day!

As the atmosphere of menace builds, the inevitability of the lovers' exposure becomes apparent. Spica's revenge is utterly horrific, in one of the most unsettling torture scenes I have ever witnessed. But in a cautionary tale such as this, how will the villain get his just "desserts"?

Well, no more spoilers. Just watch it and see. We can probably all guess what's going to happen, but the denouement, when it comes, is still satisfyingly hideous. This is a delicacy, and you know where it's been!

The crimson curtain finally drops after almost 2 hours have simply flown past, and you can finally breathe out, mouthing the word "wow!"

Nyman's stunning score (partly reprised from Greenaway's earlier "A Zed and Two Noughts") complements the film perfectly and will be stuck in your head for days afterwards.

Sadly, no extras on the DVD and, with no 5.1 sound, this appears to be a straight port-over from VHS. The sheer magnificence of this movie, though, almost every scene from which could be hung in the Tate, precludes me from giving anything less than five stars. An essential purchase.