The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover

Despite its adult themes, I watched Peter Greenaway’s ‘The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover’ as a child.

Many, many years have passed since then, and yet, it is a film not easily forgotten – its colours are still fresh in my mind.

First, there is the incredible score by Michael Nyman. And then, there is this scene:

Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes, but it is most certainly Greenaway’s painterly eye (the great English director trained as a muralist) that gives the cinematography such beauty and force.

As she steps through the door, watch her dress change colour as if by magic.

A moment of genius that shows us what, in the right creative hands, cinema can be…