DROWNING BY NUMBERS

Against Greenaway’s lavish sets unfolds a cruel yet beautiful portrait of three generations of women (all named Cissie Colpitts) who, one after another, rid themselves of their unfaithful, or simply unreliable, and thoroughly uninspiring husbands. Their accomplice is Madgett, a coroner infatuated with the women and willing to cover up each successive death.

It is a story about the strength of female solidarity, but also a study of the different impulses that can lead to murder: cool-headed revenge, simmering frustration and bitter disappointment. It asks what might happen when a woman finally tyres of saying that she has had enough. Greenaway finds humour in cruelty, dragging taboos into the open and cheerfully trampling over sacred objects – quite literally, in the case of a Bible used to prop up the shoes of one of Cissie’s husband’s eldest lovers.

Bruegel’s Children’s Games hangs in Madgett’s room, and the film itself resembles a Bruegel painting, with something different and equally absorbing happening in every corner of the frame. The images are crammed with toys, ceramics, food and numbers. The soundtrack is just as busy: the women can hold three different conversations at once, while Madgett’s son Smut – whom Greenaway described as a fictional self-portrait – can often be heard solemnly explaining the absurd rules of games he has invented.

And for anyone who wants to join in, there is another game to play: every number from 1 to 100 is hidden somewhere in the film.

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Text: dr Adrianna Woroch