The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
The wife of an abusive criminal finds solace in the arms of a kind regular guest in her husband's restaurant.
- Peter Greenaway
- Gerrit Martijn
- Peter Greenaway
Rating: 7.3/10 by 624 users
Alternative Title:
Kokken, tyven, hans kone og hendes elsker - DK
O Cozinheiro, o Ladrão, Sua Mulher e o Amante - BR
Kuchař, zloděj, jeho žena a její milenec - CZ
Le cuisinier, le voleur, sa femme et son amant - FR
Der Koch, der Dieb, seine Frau und ihr Liebhaber - DE
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover - US
A szakács, a tolvaj, a felesége és a szeretője - HU
요리사, 도둑, 그의 아내 그리고 그녀의 정부 - KR
コックとどろぼう、そのつまとあいじん - JP
情慾色香味 - HK
廚師、大盜，他的妻子和她的情人 - TW
Kokken, tyven, hans kone og hennes elsker - NO
Country:
France
United Kingdom
Language:
English
Runtime: 02 hour 04 minutes
Budget: $2,300,000
Revenue: $7,724,701
Plot Keyword: sadism, sexuality, allegory, cooking, restaurant, crime boss, satire, surrealism, sociopath, murder, brutality, avant-garde, public humiliation, stray dog, abusive husband, french cuisine, adulterous wife, cannibalism, violence
Having previously watched Greenaway's 'Prospero's Books', basically from the same era, one definitely gets a sense of the auteur, of great visualizing prowess in the Welsh native. I adore watching Helen Mirren from ANY era, but particularly here, in between the young adulthood beauty she displayed in Michael Powell's 'Age of Consent', through the remarkably absurd and audacious 'Caligula', straight to the sophisticated and very dangerous gorgeousness displayed in 'The Comfort of Strangers'. It's great to see any dude who's mean to a beautiful woman get their comeuppance (particularly the wealthy--it offers a sort of 'wish fulfillment' for the 99% of us), and the climax here is one of cinema's most articulate presentation of that phenomenon. It definitely made me wish to see the rest of both Greenaway's movies and of Mirren's performances. Well worth the acquired taste necessary for this sort of delicacy.
