The Draughtsman's Contract

There is no need to hate this movie. It's quite enjoyable by itself. It doesn't require any heavy intellectual digging or background instruction manual to appreciate. Plus, it's quirky comedy is being taken as mysterious and dark. Please! Just enjoy it and laugh. The humor is irksome but funny. It's like a bit of Shakespeare. It has meaningful plot and fun dialogs. The guy who wrote the review centering on the Draughtsman's "arrogance and innocence "(a dangerous combo!) had it spot on, and this personality flaw is key to the plot. Thoroughly enjoyable and funny and clever. Architects everywhere, TAKE COVER! LOL.

A most extraordinary film. A fascinating study of manipulation and murder, of sex, power and the abuse of sex and power. This is not always an easy film to like, it has a coldly clinical approach to its subject and protagonists which produces an intentionally distancing effect.

In one scene, the Draughtsman invites the Lady of the House to examine a painting, owned by her husband, in which a complex allegory appears to be being acted out. I see this as an analogy for the film as a whole - it is an arch, stylised, intelligent and beautiful puzzle (a murder-mystery) in which the audience is encouraged to consider the motives and objectives of the characters, but from which many important clues appear to have been deliberately removed.

This might all sound frustrating, but I find the film endlessly intriguing and entertaining. It's like a very clever and stunningly photographed Agatha Christie mystery, but without an annoying sleuth who comes along at the end and solves everything "oh-so-neatly".

The photography is exemplary (the cinematographer, Curtis Clark, seems to have done little else of note), with the camera hardly moving at all, except for an occasional tracking shot. The Kent countryside used to maximum effect, and the costumes are sumptuous (especially the wigs!). The music is also superb, with Michael Nyman producing probably his finest score.

An engaging, puzzling, visually stunning and, ultimately, rather disturbing film.

Guess I really like this sort of period movies, about the British upper-class in the 17th century. The movies have an own unique kind of style and atmosphere over them. This especially really goes for this unique little film.

it's a very witty movie and halve way through it also becomes obvious exactly how intelligently the movie is written and constructed. At first it doesn't look like the movie is heading anywhere and it's merely a good and enjoyable movie filled with some slightly subtle eccentric and quirky characters. But about halve way through it becomes clear that the intentions within the story and the intentions of the characters have way more in to them, when the movie becomes more of a murder-mystery and layered and the character's motivations all start to take form and become clear. It makes the movie surprisingly and delightful. It's a really well constructed and visually crafted movie from Peter Greenaway.

The movie doesn't have the Jane Austen kind of story and approach but more like "Barry Lyndon" with the same certain quirkiness in it, if I need to compare it to anything else. The movie has a sort of a surreal kind of atmosphere over it, which gets strengthened all the more by the outrageous costumes and wigs, thick accents and extremely difficult but beautiful to listen to- dialog and of course the special kind of characters that are in the movie. It's also a very sexy and sort of erotic movie to watch at, with almost always a sort of sexual tension in the atmosphere during the entire movie, despite not having any real nudity or explicit nude scene's in it.

The whole movie is almost entire filmed in a stage-play kind of approach, with no moving camera's and long sequences filled with dialog. Really the sort of stuff you normally experience during a stage-play. It all adds up to the reasons why this movie is a quite unique and delightful little movie to watch.

This movie is a great watch, as long as you're capable of handling the long and difficult dialog and the more stage-play kind of storytelling.

9/10

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Mr. Neville is a young arrogant artist full of himself. He is contracted to make landscape estate drawings by Mrs. Virginia Herbert. She has a bitter relationship with her wealthy landowning husband who leaves on a trip. She submits to Neville sexually as part of the contract. There is also her daughter Mrs. Talmann and her husband Mr. Talmann. The couple is childless taking care of his nephew. Mrs. Herbert tries to revoke the contract but Neville refuses. Mrs. Talmann blackmails Neville into entering a similar contract pointing out items in his drawings which indicate "misadventure". When Mr. Herbert is found dead in the moat, Neville is horrified to discover that he's the leading suspect.

This is an unusual film. It's a Shakespearian sex romp with a murder mystery. The style has long takes and mid to long distance visuals. The movie lost me the first time around. It can meander and the story can be mercurial. It would help a lot if the murder is shown even if the perpetrators are not. The individual clues need accompanying flashbacks to show that part of the crime. This has a certain amount of beauty and weird originality but it's not easy for everyone.

Hugely enjoyable, if somewhat a tad too clever for its own good. A very good English director's attempt to be more continental, by being deliberately obscure, and throwing in large dollops of raunchy eroticism. Imagine if you will an episode of PBS's Mystery set during the Restoration, with a script by Einstein, and direction by Frederico Fellini.

Two excellent stage actors - Anthony Higgins and Janet Suzman - in combination with the very sultry and seldom seen Australian actress Anne Louise Lambert, act their sexy sox off in this delightful delicate pastry of a movie. In the year 1694 an artist is commissioned to create a series of precise drawings of an enormous country house. The twist is that his agreed form of payment is most unusual.

Michael Nyman's score is a careful, yet loud, modern arrangement with contemporary wind and string instruments. The photography by Curtis Clark is incredible, and these two creative artists convince you, you are in the 17th Century. The interior scenes are lit only by candlelight - as was also the case in Kubrick's superb historical masterpiece Barry Lyndon. This movie somehow combines elements of sophisticated themes of woman's self-empowerment, the inhumanity of the aristocracy, mathematics, and Benny Hill eroticism. Really rather wonderful and unique, but also in-retrospect, less than the sum of its parts. For a superior Peter Greenaway picture, try Drowning By Numbers, A Zed and Two Naughts, and The Cook, the Wife, etc..