This just might be Greenaway at the top of his game: unbelievably funny and witty, a film that is a structurally magnificent testament to the wonderful madness of Joyce, or Perec, who not only wanted to distill the world but somehow managed to create a microcosm of their own in their work.
This is certainly the cinematic answer to a work like "Life: A User's Manual". Really, this is so laugh-out-loud funny it's not even funny, considering Greenaway's work for the past 25 years has been rather serious? What Greenaway manages to do is this: he is able to create a profound film that looks deep in the mirror and sees the world unfold upon itself in an endless swirl; then he's able to present it to us in a structurally coherent way, by means of documentary filmmaking; then he's able to poke fun mostly at those means and the film itself, and still turn that gentle and witty parody on its head. In short, this is wondrous filmmaking, something quite unparalleled in my books.
I wish there were more films like this that make you laugh and not feel bad about it.
And to think that Greenaway, who is such an aesthete and wonderful crafter of shockingly beautiful images, mostly uses stock footage and images that are very much of the ordinary sort. Knowing that he would go on to make such multi-layered works such as "Prospero's Books" (1991) and "The Pillow Book" (1996) only adds to the fun. By the way, we have Stephen and Timothy Quay, of all people, pop up in the film!
This is certainly the cinematic answer to a work like "Life: A User's Manual". Really, this is so laugh-out-loud funny it's not even funny, considering Greenaway's work for the past 25 years has been rather serious? What Greenaway manages to do is this: he is able to create a profound film that looks deep in the mirror and sees the world unfold upon itself in an endless swirl; then he's able to present it to us in a structurally coherent way, by means of documentary filmmaking; then he's able to poke fun mostly at those means and the film itself, and still turn that gentle and witty parody on its head. In short, this is wondrous filmmaking, something quite unparalleled in my books.
I wish there were more films like this that make you laugh and not feel bad about it.
And to think that Greenaway, who is such an aesthete and wonderful crafter of shockingly beautiful images, mostly uses stock footage and images that are very much of the ordinary sort. Knowing that he would go on to make such multi-layered works such as "Prospero's Books" (1991) and "The Pillow Book" (1996) only adds to the fun. By the way, we have Stephen and Timothy Quay, of all people, pop up in the film!