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31 out of 33 people found the following review useful: Two elements at war, 16 November 2004 Author: BornJaded (BornJaded@aol.com) from United States
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
10 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Fantastic Film, 23 May 2006 Author: suskified from United States
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.
2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Intriguing, Gorgeous-Looking Tragedy Of American Architect's Life Unravelling Whilst In Rome, 15 February 2009 Author: ShootingShark from Dundee, Scotland
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Stourley Kracklite is an architect from Chicago who is curating an exhibition in Rome of his hero, the eighteenth-century French neo-classicist designer Étienne-Louis Boulée. However, the project is not going well, his wife has eyes for a younger Italian man, and there seems to be a terminal ache in his guts …I'm not a big fan of the work of the acclaimed art-school darling Greenaway, but this film is brilliant. I think this is because there are three elements which separate it from the normal World Cinema stylings. The first, and most important, is the brilliant casting of Dennehy as Kracklite. Not only is he physically perfect - a big bear of a man but also a formidable intellect - but the radical departure from his normal US cop movie persona to a European art house film brings out a rich, thoughtful performance. Kracklite is a man whose world is crumbling about him, reincarnates others in himself, is obsessed with his body and writes postcards to a dead man, but his passionate defence of the exhibition and of the purity of Boulée's work is at the core of the drama. Cult fans should also note the sultry presence of Casini, the doomed friend from Dario Argento's Suspiria. Secondly, there is terrific music by the Belgian composer Wim Mertens, combining extraordinarily beautiful woodwind and piano melodies - the title piece, Birds For The Mind, is a hauntingly perfect accompaniment to many of the exquisite images in the film. Finally, the film is simply crammed full of jaw-droppingly gorgeous shots of Rome - the title shot of the twin churches in the Piazza Del Popolo, a sumptuous opening banquet outside the Pantheon (the oldest building in Rome), the sequences at the Monumento Nazionale A Vittorio Emanuele II (the "typewriter"), the grey dawn when Kracklite visits Piazza San Pietro, a bit at the Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi in the Piazza Navona, many others. It was shot by Sacha Vierny, and contains many smart visual cues (green figs and photocopier light for envy, Flavia's photo montages, Newton blowing away after Kracklite's final encounter with gravity, the spinning gyroscope), as well as more aesthetically pleasing symmetrical shots than perhaps even Stanley Kubrick's work. Vierny was one of France's most gifted cameramen (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Belle De Jour) whose career was given a second wind by his association with Greenaway, the two creating many remarkable images together. Even if you don't like arty flicks, turn down the sound on this one and just drink in the beauty and scope of the visuals. Movies are pictures. This is Greenaway's best film by a long chalk, although his subsequent two - Drowning By Numbers and The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover - are also both worth catching.
5 out of 8 people found the following review useful: Beautiful and Moving - Not Typical Greenaway's Film, 15 January 2007 Author: Galina from Virginia, USA
Dreamlike, beautifully shot by great Sasha Vernie and equally disturbing (as all Greenaway's movies are), "The Belly of an Architect" (1987) tells the story of an American architect, Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) who came to Rome to work on the exhibition dedicated to the French architect of the 18th century, Etienne-Louis Boullee (1728 - 1799). Stourley brings with him his much younger wife Louisa with whom is passionately in love. Everything looks good for him – he's got a project of his dreams to work on, his wife is with him, and his Italian colleagues seem to be supportive and exited about the exhibit as much as he is. Soon, though, the things begin to change and look rather grim – Stourley's pregnant wife enters the affair with a younger man, the work does not move as quickly as it was planned and on the top of all, Stourley gets sick and perhaps more seriously than he thinks.When I watch Peter Greenaway's films, I know they will be a feast for brain, eyes, and ears – his films consist of frames so perfectly composed that you want to capture every moment of them and exclaim like Goethe's Faust did, "Stay a while! You are so lovely!". The music in his films matches the visual beauty perfectly, and his outlook at the familiar world is always original and arresting even if it lacks warmth and sentimentality. "The Belly of an Architect" is all that: it is filled with symbolism and references to history, Art, and anatomy. It is also a social satire on difference between cultures but it is a compelling and moving story of one man's descending to chaos, hopelessness, despair, and eventually death. This is the first Greenaway's movie since "The cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" that made me feel compassion for its protagonist. I believe it is due to the incredible performance by Brian Dennehy - quite unusual name for a Greenaway's film but was he great as the architect of the title. Dennehy creates a character that is not likable as the film begins but heartbreaking and tragic by the end.8/10
6 out of 10 people found the following review useful: In other's pain you recognize yourself., 8 May 2003 Author: dracopticon from Orebro, Sweden.
This is possibly the most painful and yet bland love-drama I've seen. It's also a film about clashes between cultures. Why? you ask.(SPOILERS)Well, in the beginning, when we see the happy couple making love on the train, everything is so relaxed and comfortable. Then they arrive in Rome, Italy. And ever so slowly, the Italian sun-beaten culture with a whole different set of values, start creeping in.At first, both "Senior Cracklite" and his wife are met with great respect as if they were both filmstars or something. And then they start interacting with Italian people, eating late, beginning to get sluggish by the everyday heat, being hit by the ever-present "yada-yada" of the Italian language (it's a beautiful language, but still "yada-yada"), etc. And then Louisa meets the ever-smiling and charming Italian men, who takes her by storm. Mr. Cracklite is so immersed in his job that it's hard not to see where this is going.And so, it goes the way we all fear. And I could really feel a strange recognition in this. Not that I've been in Italy and have experienced this first-hand, but I've traveled to other countries in southern Europe, and seen/listened to this almost invisible world of "alcoholic fumes", generated by a culture raised on wine instead of milk, siestas instead of lunch-breaks, the double standard of the unmarried woman being protected to the death and the brutal male shovinistic tradition of 'hitting on' married women instead.And Mr. Cracklite is a sitting duck for this kind of 'ambush' on his relationship with his wife. Just as she is. Because they are the products of a more western view of peoples conduct. Not to say that infidelity is any less a product of our culture as well. I myself is from Sweden, and I recognize more in the way that the Cracklite's reactions than the Italian's.Also, the absolutely wonderful photo stresses this love-crisis even more. The immaculate Italian architecture, reeking of history and centuries past, the great heritage from thousands of generations of poets, musicians, statesmen, the whole civilized culture of the Romans only accentuates the feelings of estrangement between Mr. Cracklite and his wife, and between his visit to this 'alien culture' and his own distant home.And that is what ends his part in this story. But not his ex-wife's.Oh... Those women and that love. Never absolutely trustworthy.I give this film an 8 out of 10.Dracopticon out.
11 out of 20 people found the following review useful: How can a drama make up (?) all the way to be a chilling thriller., 13 November 2004 Author: dmtls from Thessaloniki, Greece
This is all about it!A spectacular drama so disturbing to become an "existence thriller".A deep and thorough look into the soul and the brain of a creative (in his very own way indeed) man.Psychosis breaks in, out of nowhere, to this man's mind and cripples his emotions, his thought and finally his life.The order mentioned before is exactly the event line of the film.Dark sides of our mind are brutally exposed and true inspiration appears to be not further than a step or two from madness.Excellent music that can both stand alone and brilliantly combine with the work, is what makes the film a true classic.A must see for everyone with a sense in real art.
5 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Beautiful, 28 October 2006 Author: severin72 from United States
Greenaway's visuals (which betray his origins as a painter in almost every gorgeously composed shot) are sumptuous. Wim Mertens score is mesmerizing. Add them to Brian Dennehy's towering performance as obsessed, betrayed, and ultimately dying American architect Stourley Kracklite and you have something very special. Kracklite is in Rome battling to put on an exhibition to his idol, 18th century French architect Etienne Louis Boulet. His young wife (Webb) betrays him, the natives scheme to undermine his exhibition and he begins to crumble physically like the ruins of the eternal city around him. The story, largely carried on Dennehy's massive shoulders, is almost incidental to the glorious, poetic footage of Rome. It is so movingly beautiful that, when I finally got around to visiting the city (a trip in no small part inspired by this film) the reality of the place couldn't compete. If you can, watch this on a big screen with the best possible suround-sound. If you can't, watch it anyway.
1 out of 2 people found the following review useful: Longing for his flat belly days?, 22 January 2009 Author: Dennis Littrell (dalittrell@yahoo.com) from SoCal
Perhaps it is a mid-life crisis and a fear of death that simultaneously hits Chicago architect Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy). He has traveled to Rome to present an elaborate tribute to the French architect Louis Boullee. Kracklite is fifty-four years old, uncertain that he has fulfilled the promise of his youth. He is married to a woman (Chloe Webb) young enough to be his daughter. So when he begins to develop stomach pains (perhaps due to a growing stomach tumor) while working in Rome and gets no satisfaction from doctors, he begins to believe his wife is poisoning him. Furthermore it appears that she is having an affair with an Italian architect named Caspasian (Lambert Wilson) who also desires to take over Kracklite's Boullee project. I think a lot of men in their fifties can identify with these sorts of threats to their well-being and perhaps be unable to tell the real from the unreal.So the human belly is a big deal in this film. At one point Kracklite prints out scores of photocopies of the belly of a Roman statue as if in scrutinizing mass copies of a flat belly he might somehow explain why he is in pain. Or perhaps the flat belly symbolizes his lost youth and the insecure feeling he has about the affection and faithfulness of Louisa, his young wife. Maybe it is even the case that the belly is a euphemistic symbol of something else that is no longer as vital as it once was. When men in their fifties worry about such things they also worry about their ability not just to cut the mustard but the quality of their work. In short, they worry about being superseded. One cannot help but feel in this case that Kracklite's growing paranoia is in part responsible for his declining power. Fear of something may give it strength.As for the way cinematic auteur Peter Greenaway directs this film, I think his intent is to let the film reflect the subject matter in the sense that both are of artistic intent rather than the movie being a commercial enterprise. (That is perhaps an understatement.) He shows the beauty of the architectural ruins of Rome. He thinks in terms of tableaux in wide shots. He picks a backdrop and sets the camera at some distance from the backdrop: Italian ruins, a spacious lobby, expansive steps in front of an impressive building. And then he plays the scene. Unlike most modern directors he mostly eschews close-ups. I'd rather he didn't. The effect is like being in a theater watching a play. There is a certain appropriateness I suppose about this technique since it creates in the viewer a feeling of spying, which is exactly what Kracklite finds himself doing in one scene, looking through a keyhole to see what his wife and Capasian are doing; and Greenaway has us see too, at the same distance.In another sense, there is a studied feel to this movie that suggests something a bit cold like marble which again is appropriate. Yet Brian Dennehy, in an intense, engaging performance, makes us feel for him and his predicament. We understand that he is realizing his mortality and we appreciate that his reaction is understandably confused and frightened. As for his wife, she seems distant not only because of the camera work but perhaps because she is psychologically estranged from her husband and from what he is going through.
1 out of 2 people found the following review useful: architects, birth, illness and death in Rome, 28 March 2008 Author: dromasca from Herzlya, Israel
Peter Greenaway is a complex artist, which seems to dedicate one decade to each of the various forms of art he engages in - painting, fiction films, documentary, multimedia. The 80s were the times of the fiction films and 'the Belly of an Architect' is one of his best and most known.This is the story of an American architect coming to the eternal city to prepare an exhibition dedicated to the revolutionary 18th century architect Etienne Louis Boulee. He soon finds he is sick, and his life and career go down on spiral, as his younger and pregnant wife starts to cheat on him with one of his Italian assistants. The principal role is played by Brian Dennehy who plays probably the best role in his career of more than 140 films (by now), a role so far from the typical Irish cop roles he is usually cast in.The story line is quite linear, but the quality of the acting and the special cinematography makes it stand in front of the crowd. Very few films succeeded to catch in image Rome so beautifully, and certainly Greenaway is one of the few to have done so. The film is full of references to architecture and art, and it is a delight to follow the composition of the scenes, resembling paintings from the masters. It is not an usual film, its unusual beauty asks to be discovered and lies in the details, but it's worth exploring and finding it.
6 out of 12 people found the following review useful: A study of the tortures of unappreciated architects, 19 April 2001 Author: Afracious from England
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.
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