review by Julie Patron
The Belly of an Architect 1987
Watched Jun 23, 2012
Julie’s review:
I was hoping for an experience like the one I had watching The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover but alas, that was not to be. I think there was some meaning here, but I didn't really care. No emotional involvement. Additionally, I'm not sure if it was my network speed or the transfer that Netflix had on streaming, but it looked pretty craptastic. The music was the highlight.
No emotional involvement is how I feel about most of Greenaway's films as they tend to engage the head far more than the heart. However, I do like this one partly because I think it is a good companion piece to Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York.
The BFI have just released this on Blu-Ray and if it is anything like their transfer for A Zed and Two Noughts I'm sure it will solve most of your problems with the craptastic appearance.
I can see that, although I absolutely fell in love with The Cook, The Thief and I was hoping for something similar; it resonated very deeply with me. I think I definitely wasn't in the mood to watch this and may have enjoyed the intellectual exercise on another day. I don't have a lot of experience with Greenaway though; the only other one I've seen was The Draughtsman's Contract, very early in college and I hardly remember it. Do you recommend Zed, or anything else of his?
The Cook, The Thief... is arguably his most visceral which is why I think it connects more with people, his other films can be quite cold and detached (in my experience at least). I do recommend ZOO, it is exquisitely made and is perhaps the best representation of Greenaway's own obsessions and passions, but there is still no real emotional involvement (although that is also part of the point with the film).
Good to know. Thanks for the rec