The Belly Of an Architect

Peter Greenaway, the controversial director of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, ZOO: A Zed and Two Noughts, The Draughtman's Contract and Drowning By Numbers, scores another artistic triumph with this absorbing tale of bowel obsession. Brian Dennehy delivers a commanding performance as Stourley Kracklite, an American architect who has come to Italy with his wife (Chloe Webb) to oversee an exhibition devoted to the 17th-century French architect Boulee, Kracklite's inspiration. Engrossed in his work, Kracklite grows more and more ill, wracked by intestinal pains that only intensify when he discovers that his wife is sleeping with another architect (Lambert Wilson). As the opening day of the exhibition draws ever nearer, Kracklite's displaced obsession (the labyrinthine architecture of the human digestive system now taking center stage in his mind) propels him on a course of self-destruction that is ultimately both tragic and comic in its witty denouement. The brooding musical score by Wim Mertens combined with veteran Sacha Vierny's outstanding cinematography perfectly complement Greenaway's strange vision. Though not for every taste, The Belly Of an Architect proves, once again, that Peter Greenaway is one of the most exciting and challenging directors working in film today. His stories have the potency of fairy tales for adults--they inspire that same sense of wonder (albeit, a bit cracked) that give the works of the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen their ongoing resonance. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)