Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
The best of the UK straight to your inbox
We help you navigate a myriad of possibilities. Sign up for our newsletter for the best of the city.
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
Obsessed with obscure English folk games and father to corpse-collecting Smut, coroner Madgett becomes involved with three generations of women all named Cissie Colpitts. Unsurprisingly, his amorously optimistic agreement to keep mum about the aquatic deaths of their husbands lands him in deep water. Greenaway returns to the playful punning, ludicrous lists, and quizzical conundrums of his earlier work: opening with a girl counting a hundred stars, the 'plot' then proceeds with those same numbers appearing either in the dialogue or in suitably bizarre images. Equally teasing is the film's complex web of absurdly interlocking allusions to games, sex and mortality: famous last words, Samson and Delilah, Breughel, circumcision, etc. Elegantly scored and luminously shot, it's a modernist black comedy filled with arcane, archaic and apocryphal lore, and hugely enjoyable.
Release Details
Duration:119 mins
Cast and crew
Director:Peter Greenaway
Screenwriter:Peter Greenaway
Cast:
Bernard Hill
Joan Plowright
Juliet Stevenson
Joely Richardson
Jason Edwards
Bryan Pringle
Trevor Cooper
Advertising
Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.
By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.
🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!
Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!