I find this film extremely entertaining and also appallingly tragic - because of the age old truths it portrays.
The major truth I see is the misuse of power by men AND by women. Two different types of power usually, but each as bad as the other in the awful FINAL horrific result - the deaths of the innocent boy and girl children.
Misuse of power by men: 1) the Coroner- entrusted with ensuring people's deaths are investigated, covers up murders. Abuse of power by someone in a traditional place of MALE authority.
2) The policeman, who is apparently on his way out from visiting a prostitute, brings all hell down on the Coroner when he sees innocent photos of his son in his shorts. The Coroner is clearly NOT a paedophile, but an egregious accessory to murder. The paedophilia is possibly more in the mind of the policeman, while ignoring the murder spree around him.
3) Drunken male yahoos mowing down the little girl in their car, accidentally or just for fun, but with no remorse.
Misuse of power by women: With Political Correctness and the Women's Lib movement this is a very brave though fairly subtly handled truth portrayed by Greenaway: how women can be just as violent and murderous to men as visa versa.
Cissie Colpitts 1 drowns her drunken fornicating husband with about as much passion as someone watching a mayfly drown. She pushes him down GENTLY again and again as he is too inebriated to resist. Talk about murder ONE! Almost psychotic detachment. Note how she then goes on to admire her husbands young lover "she has the fine fingers of needlecraft." (paraphrased). This is womanhood against manhood and it's only just beginning.
There follows a succession of women who kill their husbands by drowning, (the traditional method of disposing of rats). The men are a mixed bunch from chauvinist bastards to loving devoted husbands, but the women still dispose of them with the same absolute lack of remorse or even care - like the woman who drowns her devoted husband in the pool, she grunts as she leaves the pool containing his drowned corpse, grunting one may feel with horror of the murder, but nope, it's just EXERTION, she sportily dives back in for a few more laps OVER HIS DEAD BODY.
Meanwhile Cissie Colpitts 1 corrals the coroner to cover up more and more male culling. And watch the SUBTLE use of ACCUSATORY tone as she manipulates the weak figure of MALE POWER the Coroner, listen to the conversations as they rove around in his eerily lit car. She keeps this up to the end, accusing away while at the same time being a most awful criminal. This is the sociopath who knows no conscience only methods of manipulating people.
This accusatory control is a sort of quiet "feminine" use of power that often drives men to death, literal or psychological (which men can use just as well, just not sensitive New Age men!)Greenaway reveals that it is not just the obvious power of the "strong male" that kills.
It is as if some ancient sisterhood is being invoked and a culling of the "drone" males is being led by this very witchy Queen Bee figure. Anyone who is a part of landed English families will know characters like that, and the ancient heritage they represent!
And as those background numbers crank up to 100 with a terrible inevitability it is always this Queen Bee that is calling the shots. As the police close in on the Coroner (on suspicion of Paedophilia?? The women aren't the only twisted ones here), Cissie Colpitts 1 takes charge and under the guise of offering escape prescribes the only way for the male Coroner who has outlived his usefulness: DEATH BY DROWNING.
For someone who watches Australian TV with ads (which are distributed worldwide, they are one of our major exports it seems) that constantly preach that women should cheat, spit on, assault, castrate and even literally KILL men for any misdemeanour or just for fun (these were two famous ads) apparently as payback for ancient GROUP ill treatment (?) - I can't help but wonder about Greenaway's prescience at pointing to Western Society that is now handling the age old battle of the sexes in a way that results in just the same old (often hidden, rarely understood) emotional and physical mayhem despite whatever "progress" we think has been made.
Murder can be seen as all types of "murder" including emotional murder. And it must be stressed that Greenaway makes it clear that men can be just as culpable. Just that the current state of play may be putting the modern male very much in danger in a struggle possibly manipulated by a 3rd evil force embodied by such as Cissie Colpitts 1 who is about as feminine as Lucrecia Borgia.
In the end it is the children, the future, that suffer the final deaths. The son, left alone by the powers of the male law supposedly "protecting him" and his selfish Dad, and the little skipping girl - run down by a couple of drunken male yahoos.
As to her possible symbolism, as the daughter of a fortune teller sort of mother who also seems to be a whore on the side
Perhaps she is the "New Age" hopeful starry eyed belief system that, as the bastard child of ancient mysticism, has given such hope to millions in the West, but in fact has just blinded them to the insidious loss of HUMAN VALUE that has been going on since the end of the 70's. In the end even SHE gets the chop
The words of a Cissie Colpits 1 person I know are explained in this movie: "why do you care about PEOPLE life is just a GAME!"
The major truth I see is the misuse of power by men AND by women. Two different types of power usually, but each as bad as the other in the awful FINAL horrific result - the deaths of the innocent boy and girl children.
Misuse of power by men: 1) the Coroner- entrusted with ensuring people's deaths are investigated, covers up murders. Abuse of power by someone in a traditional place of MALE authority.
2) The policeman, who is apparently on his way out from visiting a prostitute, brings all hell down on the Coroner when he sees innocent photos of his son in his shorts. The Coroner is clearly NOT a paedophile, but an egregious accessory to murder. The paedophilia is possibly more in the mind of the policeman, while ignoring the murder spree around him.
3) Drunken male yahoos mowing down the little girl in their car, accidentally or just for fun, but with no remorse.
Misuse of power by women: With Political Correctness and the Women's Lib movement this is a very brave though fairly subtly handled truth portrayed by Greenaway: how women can be just as violent and murderous to men as visa versa.
Cissie Colpitts 1 drowns her drunken fornicating husband with about as much passion as someone watching a mayfly drown. She pushes him down GENTLY again and again as he is too inebriated to resist. Talk about murder ONE! Almost psychotic detachment. Note how she then goes on to admire her husbands young lover "she has the fine fingers of needlecraft." (paraphrased). This is womanhood against manhood and it's only just beginning.
There follows a succession of women who kill their husbands by drowning, (the traditional method of disposing of rats). The men are a mixed bunch from chauvinist bastards to loving devoted husbands, but the women still dispose of them with the same absolute lack of remorse or even care - like the woman who drowns her devoted husband in the pool, she grunts as she leaves the pool containing his drowned corpse, grunting one may feel with horror of the murder, but nope, it's just EXERTION, she sportily dives back in for a few more laps OVER HIS DEAD BODY.
Meanwhile Cissie Colpitts 1 corrals the coroner to cover up more and more male culling. And watch the SUBTLE use of ACCUSATORY tone as she manipulates the weak figure of MALE POWER the Coroner, listen to the conversations as they rove around in his eerily lit car. She keeps this up to the end, accusing away while at the same time being a most awful criminal. This is the sociopath who knows no conscience only methods of manipulating people.
This accusatory control is a sort of quiet "feminine" use of power that often drives men to death, literal or psychological (which men can use just as well, just not sensitive New Age men!)Greenaway reveals that it is not just the obvious power of the "strong male" that kills.
It is as if some ancient sisterhood is being invoked and a culling of the "drone" males is being led by this very witchy Queen Bee figure. Anyone who is a part of landed English families will know characters like that, and the ancient heritage they represent!
And as those background numbers crank up to 100 with a terrible inevitability it is always this Queen Bee that is calling the shots. As the police close in on the Coroner (on suspicion of Paedophilia?? The women aren't the only twisted ones here), Cissie Colpitts 1 takes charge and under the guise of offering escape prescribes the only way for the male Coroner who has outlived his usefulness: DEATH BY DROWNING.
For someone who watches Australian TV with ads (which are distributed worldwide, they are one of our major exports it seems) that constantly preach that women should cheat, spit on, assault, castrate and even literally KILL men for any misdemeanour or just for fun (these were two famous ads) apparently as payback for ancient GROUP ill treatment (?) - I can't help but wonder about Greenaway's prescience at pointing to Western Society that is now handling the age old battle of the sexes in a way that results in just the same old (often hidden, rarely understood) emotional and physical mayhem despite whatever "progress" we think has been made.
Murder can be seen as all types of "murder" including emotional murder. And it must be stressed that Greenaway makes it clear that men can be just as culpable. Just that the current state of play may be putting the modern male very much in danger in a struggle possibly manipulated by a 3rd evil force embodied by such as Cissie Colpitts 1 who is about as feminine as Lucrecia Borgia.
In the end it is the children, the future, that suffer the final deaths. The son, left alone by the powers of the male law supposedly "protecting him" and his selfish Dad, and the little skipping girl - run down by a couple of drunken male yahoos.
As to her possible symbolism, as the daughter of a fortune teller sort of mother who also seems to be a whore on the side
Perhaps she is the "New Age" hopeful starry eyed belief system that, as the bastard child of ancient mysticism, has given such hope to millions in the West, but in fact has just blinded them to the insidious loss of HUMAN VALUE that has been going on since the end of the 70's. In the end even SHE gets the chop
The words of a Cissie Colpits 1 person I know are explained in this movie: "why do you care about PEOPLE life is just a GAME!"