The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

One Disc
2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
English Dolby Digital 2.0
Original Theatrical Trailers
Run Time: 124 Minutes
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MOVIE
Rated NC-17 for extensive nudity and sex, graphic violence and filth of all kinds

The Marquis de Sade delighted in making people squirm. He said that his writings forced people to see the hidden desires within them all. This from a man whose novel The 120 Days of Sodom doesn't make it all the way through before just becoming literally a list (I'm serious) of perversions along the lines of: "Day forty nine, sodomized seven eight year old boys and. . ." blah blah blah. I personally enjoy making people squirm with the film Pink Flamingos because it's just SO filthy and vile. It's the little bit of Sade in me. A sadistic pleasure in watching people watch that film. While watching The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, I felt a bit of that familiar joy, another film that could bring on the squirm. But this film has good taste at the same time, while Waters was simply an exercise in bad taste, to steal a tagline from an earlier film in his oeuvre.
My first glimpse of the movie was in 1989, that glorious year when first I became enamored with film. The previous summer had hooked me. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the first film I saw repeatedly in a single theatrical release. (Previous to that, it'd been The Black Cauldron in two separate releases.) After that, I was in like flint. I became a film consumer, dying for the Friday and Sunday editions of the Chicago Tribune because then I could pour over the full page ads showcasing fabulous poster art (back when posters were more than a bunch of faces staring into the camera) and I remember, somewhere in the back, I found the ad for this film. The ad with the scantily clad woman in unusual lingerie and ample cleavage that just swept my ten year old mind right out the door. How did I know that thirteen years later when I finally got around to seeing the film, I'd know the work of that woman? That woman named Helen Mirren. And what of the film? Perhaps I read a review, or heard through the grapevine, but all I remembered was hearing "sex and cannibalism" and for a young addled gore hound like myself, just dawning into a view of sexuality, those two ideas sounded good to me. Of course, there was NO WAY IN HELL that I would ever get to see it in theatrical release. Or a video release for years. Then I got stuck into my Blockbuster job and they don't carry NC-17 movies at Blockbuster. And then my local alternative video stores moved away. But, again thanks to Netflix (God Bless Them!) I got to see it just this weekend.
So, the film is literally about the relationship between four people and, as Wayne would say: "Then it's not just a clever title." There's The Cook, Richard Borst (Richard Bohringer) who tries desperately to maintain his control over his restaurant now owned by The Thief, Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) lording his Mafioso power over Richard and his staff, brutishly loud and awful in the dining room, hurling idle threats and groping at His Wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren) who tries to maintain her dignity when this man treats her as a perpetual child and beats her up, forcing her to retreat to the ladies' room where, on her way she meets Her Lover, Michael (Alan Howard) a man that caught her eye across the restaurant and begins a passionate affair with him between courses every evening anywhere that The Cook can hide them; the meat freezer, the bread room, etc. I'm sure that as a hip audience member you feel you can see the ending coming, The Thief'll find out about His Wife and Her Lover and will do away with Her Lover in typical Mafia fashion. Hmmm. Not really. This film is different.
So what to like about this film where people are eaten, a terrible pedophiliac relationship is vaguely hinted at with the probably castrated kitchen boy, sex is had everywhere and a bloated Mafioso expounds ridiculous theories about food and waxes poetically (he thinks) about life? Well, here I go into full on film geek mode. The film is shot beautifully in glorious 2.35:1 widescreen. The sets are designed, color coded. The kitchen is green, the dining room is red and the ladies' room is white and in a Kubrickian move, when the characters pass between these rooms, their costumes change color to match. Also Kubrickian is the camera work, consisting mostly of long, lingering shots and moving camera sliding from room to room through the walls. It's unsettling, and I can compare the whole film with its depraved sex and underlying menace to the orgy sequence from Kubrick's own last film Eyes Wide Shut, though the music is less creepy in this film. The acting is top notch, especially between the two leads. Michael Gambon, who oddly enough was originally cast to play The Lover blares out his lines in an over the top, yet strangely believable characterization, calling to mind some of the great repulsive oafs of cinema and, unfortunately as it's early today, I can't quite come up with one, though I assure you, there were several in my head on Saturday during the screening. Helen Mirren, who many'll know from recent stuffy Brit flick Gosford Park and from older, less stuffy Brit flick, The Madness of King George, nails the part, playing the gangster moll with a detached pain, the look of a woman whose been living this life for ages and cannot for the life of her find a way out. Okay, and she's hot. Be forewarned, sex is not the only reason that this film got its rating. This is not a cheap pleasure. It's dark and disturbing. And gleefully funny.

VIDEO QUALITY
This anamorphic transfer of the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 is very good though occasionally suffers from an over abundance of color. In a film where color is everywhere, though largely the same two colors of red and green, this is both a blessing and a curse. The reds in most scenes look great, though when the red lights take over and the film is red and black, it feels very over saturated, though maybe that was the intention all along. The greens are flawlessly reproduced, as are the pale blue hues of the limited area seen outside the restaurant. The black level is good, but not great, sometimes becoming muddy.

AUDIO QUALITY
The audio, mixed in the film's original 2.0 stereo would've benefited greatly from a 5.1 surround track. A dialogue driven film with incredible musical cues would've had an opportunity to overwhelm the viewer. However, the dialogue was reproduced faithfully and the score by Michael Nyman (who also composed the delightful off beat score from Ravenous) rendered as filling as can be expected with 2.0. Occasionally, the sounds would overwhelm the dialogue a bit and one wishes the sound levels had been given a bit more consideration throughout.

EXTRAS
Well, we have two very similar and very jumpy trailers here. Neither are very good and one gives away the ending. But that's it. I guess you could qualify animated menus as an extra if you were really hard up. But I doubt you would be. Disgraceful. Anchor Bay, usually you produce quality special editions of edgy work, where's the audio commentary? The featurettes about the ratings issues? The butchered 94 Minute R-Rated cut? These things should be here!

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Well, it comes down to will I buy it? And I'm not sure. A rather expensive bare bones disc, and after my Pink Flamingos fiascos, it's unlikely that I'll ever be given an opportunity to show a movie to a guest blindly, so therefore the only people I could watch it with are similarly hip people who dig that kind of thing. But to those of you. If you can, rent it. And Netflix will be getting my copy back soon, so they do have it. It may be filthy and it may be grotesque, but there's also something hauntingly beautiful about it. Almost operatic. A modern Grand Guignol.