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| Draughtsman's Contract, The |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 103 |
| Public Rating: 9.60 (5 votes) |
Director: Peter Greenaway |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 1982 |
| Writer(s): Peter Greenaway |
| Reviewed by: Goatdog |
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Elliot Wilhelm, the author of Videohound's Guide to World Cinema, calls this film "the product of a brilliant smart-ass." I am inclined to agree. It is visually stunning in that kind of Merchant-Ivory way, except that it has a slightly off-color look to it, much like Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover"; it is beautiful but somehow sinister and has the look of decay about it. It's hard to pin down. The film is a puzzle of sorts, but you don't realize until about two-thirds of the way through that you're watching a mystery. As viewers, we are in much the same boat as the protagonist, an artist played by Anthony Higgins who is hired to draw several commemorative pictures of the estate of a rich woman for her husband, who is more interested in his land and his horses than he is in his wife. We just don't know what's going on until it's too late. We get an early inkling that this isn't your standard costume drama fare. Higgins initially refuses to do the drawings, and a series of deftly edited scenes shows us the process by which Janet Suzman, the matriarch of the estate, and her daughter Anne-Louise Lambert convince him to change his mind. He agrees after the proposal of the titular contract; he is to draw twelve pictures, and Suzman is to submit to his sexual desires. The family lawyer, a real sleazeball played by Neil Cunningham, draws up the contract to make it official. Higgins travels to the estate, from which the patriarch has recently left for a journey to France. He is a meticulous jerk; he insists that people and livestock be moved around at his behest, and he takes his time drawing. He's a good artist, though, as Suzman reluctantly admits as he ravishes her daily. Meanwhile, there crops up some question as to where the patriarch really is: did he travel to France, or has he been murdered? Higgins scoffs at the idea, until the scheming daughter points out incriminating elements of his very drawings that, collectively, don't really add up to anything but look like they do. In the meantime, Higgins draws his pictures, insults the impotent German wife of Lambert, played by Hugh Fraser, and unwittingly becomes more and more involved in a murder plot that may or may not be real. That's the maddening joy of this film: you don't really know whether there's anything sinister going on or not. The way the film looks and feels suggests much more than the "clues" that supposedly implicate Higgins in the murder that may have occurred. As I said, there's something sinister about the saturated colors, stately pacing, and ever-moving camera that Greenaway uses to bring to life this rotting estate. The thing is, you want there to be something going on, because Higgins is such a perfect ass that you wish he was guilty of something. His dialog is full of subtle and not-so-subtle barbs that imply that he thinks he's the only worthy person around; the way he abuses Suzman and, later, Lambert is a perfect gauge of his character. In the end, you find yourself rooting for his downfall, for whatever reason the other characters can find.
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