Tapestry of Self-reference

tedg

Spoilers herein.

For art to be real, worthwhile, it has to be more than a mere political statement. It has to be `open,' producing rewards beyond what the artist might have had in mind. Greenaway is the richest artist working in film and this film has bottomless rewards.

The key dimension here is exploitive mercantilism: the irresistibility of the personality, expectant generation of miracles, and the engineering of these for profit. In other words, theater to support power.

The key presentational mechanism is an incredibly deep self-referential nesting. Paintings within a play within a play within a movie, all shuffled. The Church is both within and without as is the power base of the artists and Medici scion. There is a phenomenal, long tracking shot during the rape that deliberately weaves through all these layers, following the main threads of the tapestry. It incidentally includes a disturbing scene; the effect is to give us no them-us boundary to retreat behind.

As we watch and deconstruct this, so do the participants (whom we fancy we are better than) deconstruct the child. Every element, from disemboweling to some heavy disgust with priests, is beautiful.

Any Greenaway project is an experience which impresses -- some are life-altering. This is great art in my opinion, but I prefer Greenaway projects that have broader ambition. This is like `Belly,' `Women' and `Draughtsman's' which each present a single metaphoric skeleton. The book (Pillow and Prospero) and counting projects (`Zed,' `Drowning,' `Falls') have fuller horizons. Where this is bottomless, those are bottomless in many directions.

If you are looking for an `easy' beginning into Greenaway's imagination, this could be a good start.

score /10

tedg 11 May 2002

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0318463/