1988
Directed by Peter Greenaway
My mom used to have this giant picture book called "The Eleventh Hour." In the story a group of animals prepare to have a feast, but find that someone has eaten all of their food already. Hidden in each illustrations are clues and puzzles and it is up to the reader to figure out which creature is responsible. Anyway, that is what this film reminded me of, although I remember the book being way more entertaining.
Three married women, all named Cissie Colpitts, drown their husbands. Each woman tries to get the coroner to cover up her crime. But, wait! There's more! Throughout the entire film, the numbers 1-100 appear in sequence. Sometimes there are in the background and other times they are spoken by the characters, which I suppose is interesting in a Highlights magazine sort of way.
I found this film to be extremely dull, so I don't have too much to say about it. Not much happens, or at least, not nearly enough to justify its running time. All the characters were obnoxious and hard to grab a hold of. I felt like the visual tricks were used as a distraction so the audience wouldn't realize the film just wasn't that good.
I think this has been removed in subsequent editions and I can't say I am too choked up about it.
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
There are 100 things beginning with S in Smut's room and 100 things beginning with M in Madgett's room.
I liked this, but I also like Peter Greenaway's style. You have The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover coming up pretty soon, I think. I'll be interested to see what you make of that.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid I found it rather repulsive, but I suppose that was its intention.
DeleteI wasn't expecting you to be over impressed by Peter Greenaway. He's not that easy to take too ..but he can be interesting in a challenging way. OK, he can be boring and deliberately obscure .. and perhaps a little disgusting at times.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the trivia snippet about the 100 objects. I didn't know that, and was intrigued .. But one is tempted to say .. err so what ..
Haha exactly. It's a strange approach to filmmaking. I don't really get it.
DeleteYo, it's like "Where is Wally/Waldo?" on film. You are more interested in finding the numbers than in the story. I fact, I have had more fun that way.
ReplyDeleteYeah it's like he needed a gimmick to distract the audience from the fact there's not much there.
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