The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover (2003)

The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover (2003)

Film Director : Peter Greenaway

Director of Photography : Sacha Vierny

Sound Production: Garth Marshall

Production design : Ben Van OS & Jon Roelfs

Costume design: Jean Paul Gautier

Running time : 1 hr 59mins

Starring: Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Rochard Bohringer, Alan Howard

"The cook...serves up gourmet masterpieces in a beautiful restaurant

The thief holds his tyrant court in the restaurant, terrorising customers...

His wife...has a dangerous and elicite passion

Her lover... is having a risky affair"

This film is known as Greenaway's grisly fairy tale, wealthy London husband Albert is a boorish, repulsive gangster who holds court at the same table in his extravagant restaurant every night surrounded by his thug gang members. His wife, who is abused and repressed but an intellectual and intelligent woman, has an affair right under his nose. Throughout the film she is humiliated in front of the group, with the talk of violence and consumption always apparent. She becomes attracted to a solitary customer and with the loyalty of the cook, their affair stays a secret throughout the majority of the film, until the husband finds out. The affair starts in the loos before spreading through the kitchen. It ends with the husband finding out the secret and killing her lover through suffocating him with pages from his own books. The wife then takes revenge through cooking her lover, and holding her husband to gunpoint and making him eat her lover. She believes her husband should 'eat his actions..' as he made her lover 'eat his own words..' before shooting him in the restaurant. The plot is a simple story of revenge and adultery, with odd connections made between sex, eating, love and death. Greenaway uses witty play on words and continuous symbolic imagery of food, which decays and rots as the film progresses on and the lovers are discovered. It is the stunning production and breathtaking design and camera work which elevates this cannibalistic gruesome film into a masterpiece by Greenaway in a dark 'comic' film style.
Although, this film is not directly relevant to our film and concept it is a great reference to have for filming and camera angles. The whole film is made from sets which are filmed moving the camera horizontally across the sets, it is stunning to view the footage transform from a bare warehouse to a lavish, grand restaurant. 'Colour' is the key styling to this film as different rooms are different colours and the costume changes, to match this. The toilets for example (shown in the still below) are pure white, however as the door opened from the restaurant (the red room) red light escapes to the room, creating certain atmosphere in the room and drama for the audience. The colour red suggests passion, danger, and a sexual nature mirroring the characters behavior in a 'pure, innocent' room. Shadows, symbolic imagery and irony gives the film its edge, and the sound has no relevance to the film, leaving the impact to be on the clever use of camera angles, lighting and colour!