The weirdest British movie ever made: ‘The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover’
Britain has always maintained a strong cultural identity through a thriving creative industry, with innovative and avant-garde filmmakers who have expanded the medium through vibrant stories that reflect the traditions, culture and politics. Whether it be the trailblazing voice of Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Derek Jarman or Powell and Pressburger, British cinema has always been a pioneer of experimental filmmaking and breaking the structure of conventional storytelling.
With decades of differing perspectives that both challenge and showcase our cultural identity, British stories have become some of the most influential in the canon of global cinema. However, among all the weird and wonderful stories that have graced our screens, one in particular sticks out to me, remaining as a singular and daring display of experimental filmmaking.
Peter Greenaway is a Welsh writer and director, known for his experimental and satirical films that often reflected the visual style of Baroque/Renaissance paintings, often concerning himself with themes relating to sex and violence. In some ways, the filmmaker is an early connoisseur of body horror, using grotesque imagery and maximising each visual element to create a jarring style that highlights his social commentary. Through vivid production design, complex costumes, nudity and graphic gore, Greenaway creates a distinctive cinematic palette that blurs the line between theatre, film and art, with many scenes being constructed to resemble scenes from elaborate paintings.
After directing films like The Belly of an Architect and Drowning by Numbers, Greenaway then made what might be his weirdest film, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Directed in 1989, the film follows a woman in an abusive relationship who falls in love with a regular customer at her husband’s restaurant. Starring Michael Gambon and Helen Mirren, the story is audacious and fearless in its ability to exist on its own terms, merging theatre and film as the production takes place entirely on a stage. The camera slowly glides from room to room, with tracking shots that follow the characters as they conduct secret affairs and conversations in hidden corners of the stage.
The production design is vibrant and unsettling, with a harsh red glow in the dining room, evil green light permeating the kitchen, and a clinical all-white bathroom heightening the tension simmering under the surface. Greenaway also uses exquisite costumes that subtly change colour as the characters move from room to room, meticulously designed by Jean Paul Gautier.
The film is set over one week, with a new encounter between the wife and her lover each day as they try to hide their affair from her violent husband. Each day, a new challenge arises as they try to meet in secret, eventually being caught and running away from his extreme outburst of anger. The pair are caught while having sex in the kitchen, naked and surrounded by joints of meat and wilted lettuce, suddenly being forced to escape the restaurant without their clothes, hiding in a truck of decaying animal carcasses.
The film has a clear political undertone, with the story ending in a moment of cannibalism that shows Greenaway’s critique of Thatcher Britain and the divisive culture created during her time in power, further increasing the separation between the rich and power. It is an attack of the senses in every sense of the word and remains one of the most outrageous and nauseating films produced in Britain, and for that, it is a certified masterpiece in its sheer audacity and beautifully disgusting aesthetic.
