The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989) ( The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover )

The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989) (DVD) (*)

~~$22.99~~ $19.98

Alternate Title: The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Catalonian International Film Festival
European Film Awards
Fantasporto Awards
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Australia ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
116 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1989 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )
Netherlands ( France, Benelux )
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Peter Greenaway

Written By:
Peter Greenaway

Actors:
Richard Bohringer ..... Richard Borst
Michael Gambon ..... Albert Spica
Helen Mirren ..... Georgina Spica
Alan Howard ..... Michael
Tim Roth ..... Mitchel
Ciarán Hinds ..... Cory
Gary Olsen ..... Spangler
Ewan Stewart ..... Harris
Roger Ashton-Griffiths ..... Turpin
Ron Cook ..... Mews
Liz Smith ..... Grace
Emer Gillespie ..... Patricia
Janet Henfrey ..... Alice
Arnie Breeveld ..... Eden
Tony Alleff ..... Troy

Synopsis:

The cruel and sadistic crime boss Albert Spica has dinner every night in his restaurant with his wife Georgina Spica and his gang. Albert abuses of his wife, his gangsters, the chef Richard Borst and the restaurant employees. When Georgina meets the gentle bookseller Michael in the restaurant, they have a torrid affair in the restroom and in the store, and they are covered by Richard. However the prostitute Pat discloses to Albert that he has been betrayed by Georgina and Albert kills Michael. However Georgina plots revenge against Albert with the support of Richard and the victims of Albert.

This is probably Peter Greenaway's most famous (or infamous) film, which first shocked audiences at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and then on both sides of the Atlantic. A gang leader (Michael Gambon), accompanied by his wife (Helen Mirren) and his associates, entertains himself every night in a fancy French restaurant that he has recently bought. Having tired of her sadistic, boorish husband, the wife finds herself a lover (Alan Howard) and makes love to him in the restaurant's coziest places with the silent permission of the cook (Richard Bohringer). Though less cerebral than Greenaway's other films, featuring deadly passions reminiscent of Jacobean revenge tragedies of the early 17th century, the picture still offers the director's usual ironic and paradoxical comments on the relations between eating and sex, love and death. The film is at once funny and horrific, and those who are not used to Greenaway's peculiar style might be even disgusted or shocked; however, one might mention Sacha Vierny's brilliant camerawork, Jean-Paul Gaultier's gaudily stylized costumes, and Michael Nyman's somber, pulsating music, which will haunt the viewer long after the film's end.

The wife of a barbaric crime boss engages in a secretive romance with a gentle bookseller between meals at her husband's restaurant. Food, colour coding, sex, murder, torture and cannibalism are the exotic fare in this beautifully filmed but brutally uncompromising modern fable which has been interpreted as an allegory for Thatcherism.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 27 September, 2016.