It’s a major leap forward for Greenaway and a clear precursor to the cook, the thief, hjs wife and her lover
Like most of the rest of his films there’s a symbolic death ritual finale
Also like most of the rest of his work there is a large amount of cataloging in the film- Greenaway is a pure artist but there’s also a mathematician in there- he’s very numerical and formal in his approach
Rhythmic in the editing
Personally the cataloging thing fits my brain (hence the website and Excel charts of movie’s I watch, etc)
Greenaway is one of the most instantly recognizable auteurs—perverse and postmodern—there’s an abundance of twinning and detailed mise-en-scene staging
Bird obsession in all of his films
About 20 minutes in there’s a jaw-dropping shot of a row of columns that likes like something from Welles, Dreyer or Tarkovsky
Again, there’s clear self-referential auteurism here- in a newspaper article Greenaway basically lays out the plot of his next two films (including belly of an architect)
His fascination with the Zebra is clear with the juxtaposition of color
There’s an in-film documentary on evolution and we have photo montages of decay
The mise-en-scene is masterpiece worthy- gorgeous, symmetrical, and absolutely packed—a master of set piece arrangement
I wonder what Greenaway thought of Cronenberg’s dead ringers which came out after and also perverse doctor twins
The Vermeer painting is a character in the film—he’s painting the frame here and copying like he did in draughtsman
Nothing in the film or frame is accidental or just shows up once-it’s so formally sound and tight- it all comes back
The score is a bit of a jig and reminds me of Aronofsky’s requiem for a dream
There’s reoccurring shots of the hospital bed- beautiful work
The twins grow more similar and dress more and more the same as the film goes along- they don’t look anything alike to begin with
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