Film Club: Drowning by Numbers (1988)

Peter Greenaway composed the film for Michael Nyman's 1988 soundtrack Drowning by Numbers; or was it the other way around? (I heard Nyman's melodic, Mozart-inspired minimalist score before I saw the pictures, and so had to make my own story up in my head before I knew what the movie would be like). In the event the film was very nearly not a disappointment; it would have had to be very good indeed to live up to the soundtrack, and indeed it was, on a big screen (projector; traditionalist) with good sound and good company (and a good wine) cinema is improved immeasurably. David Lynch has said that it does not matter what form film takes on in the future, as long as these things are present (he did not mention the wine specifically, I do not think that they will serve you wine in most cinemas, but you may be lucky enough to have a projector in your home, in which case it is permissible to encourage your guests to bring a bottle).

Madgett's breakfast

This film is incredibly visually rich, the sunset views of the Suffolk coast are actually breathtaking and shot in a way that makes them look like a painting, which gives us a clue to what the director is doing. The actors add to this, being essentially models within a super-real tableaux. Although the characters have little real depth they are immediately recognisable, grotesques, like the characters in a Hogarth painting. As with the director's other movies this is film as a piece of art - it is not a realistic movie. The plot concerns three women (Joan Plowright, Juliet Stephenson, Joely Richardson) who all attempt to murder their husbands by drowning them. The coroner, Madgett (Bernard Hill, doing a good impression of a dirty old man), who helps them conceal the murders, has a mentally disturbed son who introduces us to the rules of various games. Not to give too much away but by the time the final murder takes place you get the sense that the women do it because they see it as a game, more than because they are actually 'evil.' As the story goes on, the numbers 1-100 are noticeable in sequence in the background of scenes. Everything is larger than life - Madgett's breakfast, for instance.

The director appears to be playing games too - all those that appear in the film, such as 'Hangman's Cricket' were made up for the movie. There almost appears to be some sort of postmodern business going on  - eventually life and death themselves become games, and the viewer is invited to arrive at their own interpretation of what it is that it all means; all this painterly symbolism. The cast are actually very good, but the objects and symbols seem to express more than the nuances of their characters ever really could.

There are several lecherous old men in the story. Maidens are pretty, and frolic in the Southwold countryside. We are almost in the world of fairy-tale here, but there is no moral to the story. Ultimately we get up to 100 and the film ends - what more can it do? 'Once you've counted 100, the rest are all the same,' says someone. It's funny - the film is often funny, and sometimes tragic. Bit like life, really.


images: http://petergreenaway.org.uk