The film reviews the chef, the thief, his wife and her lover.

Longing for ... murder ... dessert. Have a good appetite!

Many people interpret this film as a political fable, but it is more a reflection on contemporary society.

-Chicago Sun Times

The script of the film is well written, full of black humor, and almost every dialogue and monologue has wonderful irony.

-Scroll Movie Review

Peter Greenaway's harsh humor and pleasant attacks break all sacred things, which are fully shown in this movie.

-Variety shows

Peter Greenaway's The Chef, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover shows the ugliest imagination in the most beautiful way.

-Washington Post

This is the only great movie in Greenaway.

-Film critic

About the film

Peter Greenaway 1989' s Lust, Color and Taste is as complicated and eccentric as its name, and it is a cutting-edge film noir with description and atrocities. This film weaves an absurd drama of desire and desire between the identities and relationships of four characters. In the slow motion of the lens, a luxuriously decorated and brightly lit restaurant unfolds like a stage, performing a gorgeous, grotesque and full of implications. Greenaway said: "The difference of this film is that it tries to enlarge my vocabulary extensively and expresses my dissatisfaction and anger with the recent political situation in Britain extensively. Since this is a film about a consumer society, it involves greed-the greed of a society and a person. A man knows the price of everything, but he doesn't know their value. Compared with any previous film, I have invested more enthusiasm here, and I pay more attention to the emotional relationship between the film and the audience. " The scene of the film is first-class, and the main scene is the Dutch restaurant, which is a fantasy. On this stage, Green Na Wei arranged an aesthetic view, giving creation, consumption and desire a concrete space and character structure. This movie is not a deformed horror show. Those who think it is only about gluttony, sexual desire, barbarism and vulgar table manners should reconsider. This film reveals the corrupt soul of human beings through their most basic strength and defects.

Metaphor and symbolic meaning

Greenaway himself said, "This is a metaphorical film. American movies have never used metaphors. The only excellent metaphorical filmmaker you can find is david lynch. Americans don't understand the meaning of metaphor in movies. They are very good at shooting straight bones in the dead of winter, which is the most pleasing thing. Besides, they do almost nothing. What I strive to pursue in making movies is to explore metaphors and symbols. " Green Na Wei's precise picture processing makes many scenes in the film highly metaphorical or metonymic. Michael gambon's self-styled food thief is a display of greed and moodiness. Howard's scholar historian represents the contemplative rationality willing to be lonely, and the two constitute the opposite poles in the Green Na Wei equation. In the film, the chef embodies the synthesis of their artistic creativity, while the wife means the liberation of artistic pleasure desire.

Michael is a symbol of culture and meditation. He was addicted to the world of books, and only because of Georgina's lust did he temporarily enter the secular world of the restaurant. Their bodies fit mysteriously, but they are similar but different. In the world of restaurants, Georgina's clothes always change sensitively with the color of the environment, and she seems to be able to blend into every different space at any time without any difficulty. On the other hand, Michael is always changing. His brown suit never changes color. Even if his body was cooked, it was brown. It is precisely because of the change and invariability of Georgina and Michael that their respective roles and functions are determined, which makes the fragile Michael die because of Albert's rude borrowing of culture, and also makes the flexible Georgina kill Albert by imitating but distorting the object of Albert's desire.

In this film, "eating" is a core metaphor that runs through the world of beasts and the world of human civilization. This is reflected in the thief Albert. Albert the thief is a sadist himself. He frantically reduced everything around him to the level of his taste and enjoyment. Symbolically speaking, Albert is also a typical image of wanton waste and violence in today's consumer society. Whether in the creative kitchen or the civilized bookstore, he is a rude intruder and can only bring chaos and destruction. Albert even called himself an "artist" because he "put business (money) and pleasure (food) together". And he is indeed an artist of an era, although it is only opposite to artists in the cultural sense.

Richard, the chef ranked first in the film title, performed his own function as a director to some extent. He is the director behind the drama in the film, he indulges and satisfies Albert's appetite, and he guides and protects Georgina and Michael's lust. Finally, it was he who turned Michael's body into a cruel work of art and made the whole play slip into complete black. At the same time, like the audience, he is also a pair of eyes for peeping and witnessing. After Michael's death, he relayed their sex scenes to Georgina to ensure the authenticity of this short-lived erotic drama.

The use of color and music

In this film, Grinaway, a British painter, fully demonstrated his love for painting and drama. The most special feature of this film is the director peter green Na Wei's handling of space. The three main activity spaces in the film-parking lot, kitchen and restaurant-are divided into three different worlds, which are caused by different colors and different music, and also highlight the unique symbolic significance of each space. When the movie is staged in space, the lens moves in parallel at the position of the disappearing fourth wall, so that the scene can be changed from one space to another without quitting. The artistic design of the film is also closer to the stage style, unnatural, showing different spaces with strong symbolic colors (parking lot: blue, kitchen: green, restaurant: red, bathroom: white). Even the characters' clothes have obvious changes with the different colors of the environment. In addition, the overall narrative of the film is divided into several acts according to time, like a drama. Before each scene begins, the menu of the day is used as a sign. In the close-up, all kinds of food are arranged in exquisite patterns, surrounded by the names of dishes and the number of weeks written in beautiful fonts. Moreover, the film begins with two waiters pulling the curtain and ends with the scarlet curtain, which constitutes a complete closed stage time.

executant

In this film, the actors showed extraordinary courage, and only a few people with strong nerves and appetites could do what they were asked to do. Michael gambon and helen mirren are both the most outstanding actors in England, and they have played many important roles in Shakespeare's plays.

The change of helen mirren's role as a wife is shocking: she has changed from a submissive wife to a bold lover and an evil avenger. In those bold sex scenes, sex is not used for pleasure, nor for love, but to escape from reality; Desire is the shortcut for them to forget. Helen mirren also proved that a top actress doesn't have to be a classic beauty or warm up before she is 40.

Albert the thief is one of the ugliest characters in screen history: ignorance, arrogance and violence. Michael gambon knows how to make those wonderful dialogues achieve the best effect, and it is the just right performance that makes watching this movie a pleasure.

This film is rated X in America.

In the film, the dog's excrement is actually made of chocolate cream.

The names of the four main characters in the film were originally named by the actors at that time when they were considering the role candidates in Greenaway. Chef Richard is played by Richard Bohringer, which is the only achievement Greenaway left when he first considered actors. The thief Albert was named after albert finney, while his wife Georgina was named after Georgina Hale. Interestingly, the lover Michael was named after michael gambon. Finally, Greenaway asked him to play Albert.

Richard, the chef in the film, is played by French actor Richard Bohringer, who has an elf-like daughter Romana. 17 years old, starring in the shocking gay movie Crazy Night.