What is one to do when a monster enters their lives, running roughshod over everything without ever being kept in check?
When we first see Michael Gambon in 1989’s notorious The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, this gangster has a chef stripped naked while he and his thugs force-feed the poor man dog shit. If you’re already thinking this may not be the movie for you, then you may be right. But then you be missing out on a strangely beautiful, painterly film that is as stirring emotionally as it is visually.
One aspect of this which will stick with me is it is a long movie. I’m not referring to the runtime, which is appropriate, but instead to the expanse most of the set occupies horizontally. With the exception of a couple of key scenes near the end, the drama takes place entirely within a long strip that begins with a parking lot and goes through a massive kitchen and cavernous dining area before terminating at what may be the most spacious restroom I have seen.
I was using words like “painterly” and “staged” intentionally, as this is a deliberately artificial environment. The dining area is saturated in a lurid red and dominated by a reproduction of a Flemish Baroque painting showing wealthy men dressed in the finery of that era. Not by coincidence, Gambon and his mob are dressed in a similar manner the first time we see them. Even the first shot reveals the set to be a giant stage, and the picture is bookended by the parting and closing of theatrical curtains.
I’m not sure if it is because of, or despite of, this high theatricality, but the drama seriously got under my skin. Gambon’s behavior is consistently, deeply repellent and yet it is, unfortunately, within the realm of the believable. Even if we hadn’t witnessed some of that behavior, it is obvious from his wife’s (Helen Mirren) resigned demeanor that life with him is hell. Seeing a bookish man (Alan Howard) dining at a nearby table over consecutive nights, she sees the opportunity for escape, however brief.
At first, their dalliances are in the restaurant’s bathroom. There’s a genuine sensuality and delicacy to their first encounter, even if it is in a bathroom stall. I wasn’t sure if they had even exchanged any words prior to this moment. Naturally, a man like Gambon’s character would have no hesitation in storming into the ladies’, which he does. Disaster is averted, but not before he delivers this appalling line to Mirren, who he believes is alone in that stall: “Are you playing with yourself? You’re not allowed to do that. That’s my property.”
Before long, the chef (Richard Bohringer) arranges for them to have trysts in various parts of the kitchen. He seems to genuinely like these secret lovers, though I suspected he also enjoyed having some measure of revenge against the boor who is holding his restaurant hostage night and night. Gambon had even gone as far as to impose a huge neon sign for the exterior, changing the establishment’s name to the surnames of himself and the chef.
There are some interesting observations here about the relationship between sex and eating. We will see different characters consuming the same food but with different reactions. I find it interesting how the mouth tastes the food, but it is the brain that appreciates it (or not, in the case of Gambon and his thugs). Then there’s sex, where the same people may employ the same body parts, but the act is passionate and beautiful between Mirren and Howard, while Gambon reduces the act to nothing more than animals rutting. Bohringer even has the interesting observation that “Eating black food is like consuming death.”
That association between food and death foretells an audacious finale. I’m sure many viewers will find that moment excessively ridiculous, repulsive or both. And it is both, while also being the perfect conclusion. In a concise and shocking moment, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover finds a way to deal with the monster at the heart of the story, and in a way that is as perfect as it is unique.
Dir: Peter Greenaway
Starring Helen Mirren, Michael Gambon, Richard Bohringer, Adam Howard
Watched on Fabulous Films (yep, that’s the name they decided to go with) UK blu-ray (region B)