Format: Video from The Magic Flashdrive on rockin’ flatscreen.
Peter Greenaway is a director I have trouble understanding in some respects. I mean, I think I get his films in large part, but his oeuvre is a collage of seemingly disparate elements sewn into a whole. There’s a part of his work that is reminiscent of a director like Oshima—it’s blatantly sexual and earthy, with much of the plot being driven forward by sensual desires and actions, often in what would best be called non-traditional places. There’s also a large piece of his work that touches on the body horror of a director like Cronenberg. The difference is that Greenaway’s work is set more closely in the real world rather than science fiction or horror, and the body horrors that crop up are those that might actually happen, or at least could happen. It was true of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and it’s true of Drowning by Numbers.
At least two of the words in the title of Drowning by Numbers are incredibly appropriate. Three people drown in the film, and the numbers from one to 100 appear in the film at some point. The story concerns a trio of women—grandmother, mother, and daughter, all named Cissie Colpitts (played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, and Joely Richardson, respectively). In turn, starting from eldest to youngest, the three women drown their husbands and then coerce the local coroner Madgett (Bernard Hill) into helping them cover up the crime. For his part, Madgett is attracted to all three Cissie Colipittses, resulting in something not unlike the Three Billy Goats Gruff, where Madgett is promised something more and more wonderful each time he helps suppress the evidence of a deadly crime.
