The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover [Region 2]
by Peter Greenaway
![The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover [Region 2]](/images/The-Cook-the-Thief-His-Wife-Her-Lover-Region-2-B0000UM0NU-L.jpg)
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Actor: Alan Howard, Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Richard Bohringer, Tim RothDirector: Peter Greenaway
Cinematographer: Sacha Vierny
Writer: Peter Greenaway
Editor: John Wilson
Producer: Daniel Toscan du Plantier
Producer: Denis Wigman
Producer: Kees Kasander
Producer: Pascale Dauman
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Swedish (Subtitled); Danish (Subtitled); Finnish (Subtitled); Norwegian (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Director's Cut, Import, PAL, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 119 minutes
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
DVD Reviews of The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover [Region 2]
DVD Review: Art can be offensive
Summary: 5 Stars
Titus Andronicus was considered offensive back in Shakespeare's early days.
The question is always the same: Is it art?
In film, the basic criteria are plot, directing, acting, cinematography, soundtrack music, and a focused overall vision.
This film meets or exceeds "excellent" in all these categories. The story is compelling, the actors are superb, the cinematography is stunning (especially the long moving horizontal shots), the soundtrack music is quite appropriate and kind of spooky, and the director's vision, disturbing as it may be, is skillfully focused. The story leads up to an inevitable climax.
Do we enjoy seeing people being urinated on and smeared with feces? Of course not, but those scenes are quite brief, and they set up the audience's hatred for the antagonist, who certainly receives his due in the climax of the film.
The oft-mentioned metaphor about Thatcherism and its effect on small business owners in Great Britain is quite accurate. Thatcher (much like Reagan) was anti-union and pro big business, allowing big, monopolistic corporations to take power and squash the little guy.
In the film, the male protagonist dies with pages from the book about the French Revolution stuffed down his throat. Isn't it obvious that this director is making a political statement?
Yes, this film is disgusting---but the systematic destruction of the middle class by greedy, exploitative corporate entities is even more disgusting.
I think it's a great film. Even if you don't grasp its political message, it's still an engaging story. And, in classic fashion, the bad guy gets what he deserves.
If only the political bad guys of the 20th and 21st centuries were coerced to do what Michael Gambol has to do at the end of this film. We can only hope.
Description of The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover [Region 2]
Few directors polarize audiences like Peter Greenaway, a filmmaker as influenced by Jacobean revenge tragedy and 17th century painting as by the French New Wave. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is both adored and detested for its combination of sumptuous beauty and revolting decadence. A vile, gluttonous thief (Michael Gambon, The Singing Detective) spews hate and abuse at a restaurant run by a stoic French cook (Richard Bohringer, Diva), but under the thief's nose his wife (the ever-sensuous Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect) conducts an affair with a bookish lover (Alan Howard, Strapless). Clothing (by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Gaultier) changes color as the characters move from room to room. Nudity, torture, rotting meat, and Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs) at his sleaziest all contribute the atmosphere of decay and excess. Not for everyone, but for some, essential. --Bret FetzerBestsellers in DVD
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