Oh my gawd, could any film ever be as audacious, as brutal, as mean, and as utterly gorgeous as Peter Greenaway's 1989 The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover? I don't even know where to start describing this feast for the eyes and mind. Our cook prepares sumptuous meals for the brutal, animalistic restaurant owner thief while his wife (played by Helen Mirren) carries on an affair under his nose (and in his restroom and kitchen) with her lover.
This film was hard to watch and even harder to rate. It is avant garde, it is an art house piece, it is beautiful (thanks to costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier), it is unlike anything you'll ever see. It is in a category unto itself.
Say what you will about this film ... its use of colour, that it's a modern fable, that it's a allegory for Thatcherism ... the fact is, retribution has never been captured so perfectly on film. Sickeningly so.
My rating 10 out of 10.
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