Drowning by Numbers (1988)

This is more than just a movie,it is also a series of games and puzzles that we can play along with.Along the way things- and occasionally people- are constantly catalogued and numbered in clever and subtle ways.These numbers serve as signposts, indicating how far along we are, and sometimes they also have underlying meanings and echo.For example, note the number the skipping girl in the opening scene stops at.Her explanation for stopping at that particular number neatly ties in with the very last scene.The cinematography is superb.Many of the scenes look like oil paintings - both still lives and landscapes- by the old masters which, sort of startlingly,contain movement and life.There are also lots of scenes shot with colour filters or very intensely focused lighting, which makes for surreal but vivid and striking effects.All the actors do an excellent job, but two- Bernard Hill and Joan Plowright especially stand out for their superb elocution and deadpan wit.Finally, Michael Nyman's musical scoring is a treat.Ultimately, Drowning by Numbers is a black comedy but somehow a very lighthearted and engaging one.

British director Peter Greenaway was very popular among European university students in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His painterly style paired with Michael Nyman's minimalistic neo-baroque music yielded some of the most unique and interesting art films of the period (The Draughtsman's Contract; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; Prospero's Books etc.). Drowning by Numbers is my favourite and has remained in my all-time Top 20 ever since.It is probably Greenaway's least bizarre and most accessible work and the one that strays furthest from being another moving baroque painting, but it is just as highly structured and densely infused with statistics-like enumerations (another common trait of Greenaway's movies). Numbers, repetition, symmetry and surreal, invented nursery games create an intricate web in which the story of three women drowning their husbands unfolds. Joan Plowright and Bernard Hill give memorable performances here (as usual), but a Greenaway movie is never really about story or performances, but puzzles, imaginative structuring and an eye-opening, fresh perspective on people's motives and dark secrets.Being one of the most unusual filmmakers, Greenaway should not be overlooked, and Drowning by Numbers is a perfect initiation into his world. It might not be as shocking and powerful as The Baby of Macon, but it is just as gripping and, for a Greenaway movie, surprisingly funny and warm.

This is one of those films that the "artsy" crowd loves - a film that is just too "deep" for the average moviegoer to understand or appreciate. It appeals to the same crowd that calls a jar of urine with a cross in it "art." Cryptic numbers, odd eclectic characters, and fantastic settings substitute for any character development or cohesive story line. Any criticism, however, can be dismissed by the movie's handful of fans with derisive rolling of the eyes. You must just be too thick to get it, and obviously you're far too uneducated for them to even try to explain it to you.If you have a PhD in philosophy and drink tea from a little china cup with your pinkie finger extended, this film might appeal to you. For the rest of us...well, watch something else. Better yet, stop by the local fast food restaurant and allow one of those pseudo-intellectual fans of this film to serve you a tasty lunch.

Such an obviously non-American film. I believe this was the first time I had seen Joan Plowright, and she was so good. Having seen more of her work since, I know this is no fluke. Everyone else was also good here, especially Joely Richardson and Bernard Hill. I won't go into any detail, but the movie is weird, weird, weird, and has a dark subject matter without being a dark film. Highly recommended for those looking for something different. Grade: A