Greenaway’s work is often seen as pretentious and visually claustrophobic, making it increasingly hard work to watch. The Cook however is a masterpiece that is suitable for some of his less avid fans. Coined as one of his ‘dramatic’ works, this film wonderfully draws on the theatre, with red curtains opening and closing at the beginning and end, the menus that break up each day like acts and the fourth wall that we are often kept behind. Not only do the characters give powerful theatrical performances, Helen Mirren as the abused wife and Michael Gambon as the disgustingly stupid thief, but the lavish setting of the voluminous kitchen and garish restaurant adds to this dramatic urge to illuminate cinema’s artifices. Even the costumes of the characters change colour depending on whether the room is the cool green of the lover’s safe haven in the kitchen, or the carnivorous hell of the thief’s highly controlled restaurant.
The story is pretty simple the wholly disgusting villain Spica holds Boarst’s restaurant Le Hollandais under tight control. With his group of thugs behind him Spica violently abuses anyone in his way from restaurant owners to young kitchen boys. His wife, Georgina, tired of his endless foul nature finds comfort in one of the restaurants regular customers and begins a torrid affair that takes place in Spica’s very own restaurant. Naturally the film escalates to epic proportions as Greenaway’s gruesome fascination with bodily functions all become strangely and forcefully connected in this film.
From the moment The Cook begins there is something completely different from your average Hollywood blockbuster. Sascha Vierny’s sweeping camera that wildly arches around the restaurant or glides through the kitchen instantly unnerves the viewer; it places us in a Greenaway world where nothing is predictable. The colours, setting, costumes and pulsating Michael Nyman score with the lingering haunting psalm music demonstrates a close attention to every detail, drawing us into a film that is truly a feast for the senses.
