A Barriga do Arquiteto

One of my favorite Greenaway films. Story, visuals, metaphor, acting, music...it's got it all. The visuals of Rome are stunning. Wim Mertens' musical accompaniment is brilliant and on par with any modern minimalist composition. After years of seeing his TV roles, I was completely floored by the depth and authenticity Brian Dennehey brought to the main character. I've watched this film at least a dozen times over the years and enjoy it thoroughly each time. Unlike a previous reviewer, I don't see the need to judge this film based on how much it resembles previous or subsequent Greenaway films. "Belly of An Architect" is not as abstract as some of the other Greenaway films, but that shouldn't be viewed as a negative. The film is great and rich in its own right. I highly recommend it.

Starring Brian Dennehy, an unusual actor for a Peter Greenaway film, as Kracklite, an architect, a career we don't often see explored in cinema, Greenaway's 'Belly of an Architect' is somehow bigger and more emotionally ambitious than most of his other works, which lack human resonance. In his other films, the characters are uniformly British and so Greenaway's coldness and archness toward them is indicative of a general misanthropy. Here, it's aimed squarely at Romans, whose loose morals and carnivorous practices contrast with the enormity of Kracklite's ego and generosity of spirit. His stomach is being eaten away by some unknown illness or cancer, and this serves as a metaphor for his ego being eaten away by the carnivorousness of Roman culture. His wife, his identity (which is a vicarious one, given his devotion/debt to his idol, Bouleé) and his work are being repossessed by the conquestful Roman carnivores who aim to destroy him simply for the material gain of taking what is so ostentatiously his. But his devotion to Bouleé, his need to make Bouleé's work more widely known, is not a singular or altruistic act; the exhibition he is organizing will make Bouleé more commercial and accessible, but it will also be an addendum to his own career, a manifestation of his ego. His diary is written in the form of letters to Bouleé, to whom he is almost praying as his own personal God. And his devotion to this God is not a selfless one, since Bouleé is so inexorably an element of his own identity.

Rome and its buildings are given a golden, postmodern glow, their clarity enhanced by Wim Mertens' musical score, which adds its own sunlight to the proceedings. But the sunlight that glows throughout Rome and permeates the aura of the film is an impersonal one, an indifferent one, as ancient as the ruins of Rome, which our Roman characters observe have been more useful and influential as ruins than they were prior. "They're better as ruines," a character observes. "Your imagination compensates for what you don't see, like a woman with clothes on." The Romans are depicted here as carnivores (and the word "carnivore" is used multiple times) who not only want to devour and repossess, but want to strip. Brian Dennehy's performance here is indeed stripped, larger than life, fiery. He explodes on screen, bringing the film into another realm, introducing emotional dimensions not often seen in the films of Greenaway; and in this, the film has a power that inhabits the movie's symmetrical form (mostly every shot is symmetrical), its architecture, and threatens to destroy it. The coldness that is typical of Greenaway, that architecturized godlessness, is at war with fiery human passion in all its flawed nakedness.

Greenaway's movies, in their arctic wit and obsession with symmetry, are cinema as architecture more so than storytelling, so 'The Belly of an Architect,' contrary to the claim by many that it's his most mainstream and therefore weakest work, is perhaps his most appropriate film, and maybe his best

Welcome to Greenaway cinema. Having seen only his 'hit' The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover(1989) and this, I cannot say much for the sum of his films. I will simply try to find and watch more film of his. His comments and quotes here in IMDb are impressive as well.

On to the film: Shot in Rome, it will thrill people with interest on architecture both visually, but thematically as well, well at least at some points. The musical score is stunning. It suits the theme and climax that Greenaway masterfully builds. As with The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, it is not various separate songs. All the soundtrack songs together form a thriumph of visual and audio art, suggesting my point about the importance of film soundtracks for an effective impact on viewer. This is a sad story, but it features some light points where joy and lust for life is celebrated - at least for my eyes and ears.

Those who criticise Greenaway for attempting only to shock the viewers have simply lost the point. Anyway. The Belly of an architect is no violent film, so it is highly recommended to those interested in films, maybe a bit 'arty', but with heart .

The ebullient Brian Dennehy gives a fine performance as Stourley Kracklite, an American architect who is in Rome with his younger wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to arrange an exhibition on the French architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. Kracklite is obsessed with Boullée and even writes letters to him. Kracklite's life soon begins to deteriorate. He starts to suffer excruciating stomach pains and vomits each time he eats. He even thinks that his wife is poisoning him. His wife then falls pregnant and has an affair with Kracklite's rival architect, Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Kracklite then sleeps with Speckler's sister, to get some sort of satisfaction. Speckler intrudes while they are having sex, and announces, "having sex with your pregnant wife is perfect, because I don't need to use contraception". Kracklite then punches him on the nose. Speckler's sister then says, "Don't put your blood on my white towel."

The film follows the parallels of these two unappreciated architects from different eras. The film is memorable for Dennehy's (an actor who is also unappreciated) remarkable performance. Also, the beautiful cinematography by Greenaway's trusty DOP Sacha Vierny makes the film very easy to look at. From the ancient architecture of Rome, to a painting-like bowl of figs, it is pristine-looking. Michael Nyman is absent, but the music by Wim Mertens is splendid. This film was made in between A Zed & Two Noughts and Drowning by Numbers, and it is quite unlike those two films, which, I think, are superior to this in the way they offer us a much more enigmatic, abstract concept. But even an ever so slightly lesser Greenaway film is a thing to behold.

Why was this film made? Because someone talked Greenaway into trying to go mainstream. By this time, he had already made some of the most adventuresome films in history. This simple confection is sandwiched between `Zed and Two Noughts' and `Drowning by Numbers,' both of which are complex, intelligent, risky, erudite.

I can only imagine that he thought he could finance his serious work with a commercial success. Some might tag this as an accessible Greenaway film, but I hardly think it is Greenaway at all. Nor is the remarkable composer Nyman present.

All that remains are some lush compositions, studies in photographing monumental architecture, and these are pleasant enough. A subtext is fascist perfidy in architecture and the film takes a critical (visual) stance on Roman architecture. See here how all the buildings are from the emperors or Mussolini. No church architecture here which must have been a conscious omission for simplicity.

Everything about the physical fabric portrayed is dehumanizing, especially as compared to the containing space of the skin. As an architect myself, I can appreciate the message. It is a clever conceit, but it pales, utterly fades away, in comparison to his best: `The Falls,' and the `book' films.