The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)

Welcome to day eleven of the thirty-one days of horror. Today's film is The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover by Peter Greenaway and oh my god, this is something. If I had to sum up this film in one word it would be "excessive". It's an assault on the senses, like drinking double cream. The staging is gorgeous – the colours are perfectly balanced, the lighting is boner-inducing, the sets absolutely stink of refinement. Everything about this film is larger than life. The hcaracters are dawn in such broad strokes that they'd be caricatures if they weren't so well-acted and directed; the music is almost more operatic than opera itself – there's this little choirboy who has a voice so pure and so perfect it makes Aled Jones sound like a wet fart. And, of course, that spirit of excess spills over into the events of the plot. There's full-frontal nudity (male and female), sexual violence, child abuse, vomiting – in the opening scene of the film, a bloke gets force-fed dogshit and then pissed on. That's what you've got here – a film that is determined to give you an extraordinary experience. 

    The story is one that's been told for as long as there have been human beings and some form of social hierarchy. A woman is married to a wealthy, powerful man, (in this case, a gangster) but she's not happy. Her husband is cruel, boorish, uncultured, and just generally a terrible person to be around. So she has an affair with a commoner – in this case, a bookshop owner. Her husband finds out, and bad fuckery ensues. What makes it special is the way it's told. The whole film is done in this highly stylised, stagey kind of way – it's not a realist film and it doesn't intend to be. In fact, for a lot of the film, it actually feels almost like you're in a theatre, only you're impossibly close to the actors. And speaking of actors – Jesus, what a cast. You've got Michael Gambon as Albert Spica, the gangster; Tim Roth as his lieutenant; Dame Helen Mirren herself as his wife; and Ian Drury is in it. As in, Ian Drury and the Blockheads – that Ian Drury. 

    The entire film is so overblown, so grandiose, that if even one person had screwed up the entire thing would have collapsed. But noone did, and the end result is a film that, whether you like it or not, you will never forget. And yes, it is horrifying – especially the final scene, which I definitely am not going to spoil. Watch it in bed, drinking a good port, preferably with your partner. It’s like wiping your arse with silk.