Goltzius and the Pelican Company

What do you get when you put Baby Of Macon and Prospero's Books in a blender? The latest Peter Greenaway of course, filled to the brim with all of his usual obsessions(sex, death, art, formal symmetry, pompous accents, salacious humour, and the complicity of spectatorship). The multi-layered imagery is generally well composed, if a little cold, but the film is neither as shocking or inventive as it ought to be and seems more like a return to type rather than form. Fans will eat it up though.

An a-historical sex sermon full of absolutely stunning visual inventions, a wonderfully wild faux-renaissance musical soundtrack by a composer named Marco Robino, and a roaring, burlesque, implacably accented lead by Ramsey Nasr as Goltzius. Sadly, the dialogue is a masturbatory pseudu-intellectual mishmash. It's like noise - replace the entire text and I'm not sure I'd be able to tell the difference. I respect Greenaway's unabashed pretentiousness, to a degree, but it's not great cinema.

Greenaway by numbers

Perhaps the most Greenaway-y film Greenaway has ever made, and perhaps his most audacious from a visual standpoint. His characteristic Mannerism is blended with his VJing and video art to bizarre and arresting effect. However, it lacks a lot of the remarkable vitriol of his earlier work (especially The Cook... and The Baby of Macon), with a rather limp political message. Still, definitely worth a watch for any Greenaway fan.

32. ?stanbul Film Festivali - Atlas Sinemas?: Greenaway bizi bir kez daha sanat tarihinin karanl?k dehlizlerinde kaybolmaya mahkum ediyor. Olay örgüsü karma??kla?t?kça, seyirci kayboluyor, fakat üstad?n film üzerindeki hakimiyeti yerli yerinde. Kendisinden al???k oldu?umuz marjinal görselli?in yan?na, din, seks, iktidar gibi konularda mühim laflar eklemesi de cabas?.