I always thought that art has room for everyone. You can be a deeply authentic artistic soul or a comedic clown and still find room for your artistic expression. I never believed that art means only teary dramas and heavy storylines. Die Hard can go together with Oliver Stone's movies and Ingmar Bergman can dance with Edgar Wright. Being narrow-minded, meaning that you find pleasure only in mainstream cinema or going necessarily for arthouse selections was never my cup of tee. But I have a dreamy list in my mind. There are some films that distinguish from the others. There are some films that hit bull's eye. And those films are mostly movies that tend to push the art of cinema a bit further. Daring, uncompromising creations that provoke the audience with their story, visuals, acting and cinema language.
The Cook by Peter Greenaway is definitely one of those movies. A harsh, disturbing creation, a visual phantasmagoria for the eye and a cornucopia of tasty details that mesmerize the audience and leave them in a state of utter bewitchment. A film that you feel with every nerve of your body, an experience that you never forget and a journey inside the mystic mind of a creator who dared to go much deeper than others have dared. The Cook stays to this day a movie that defined the arthouse cinema of the 80s, its excruciating agenda together with the artistic perfection of the frame synthesis make a "nasty" combination that you can't possibly resist. Michael Gambon in the best performance of his career giving a character that went down in history as quite probably the worst person you have ever seen, set in an environment of utter artistic beauty. The contradiction, the juxtaposing character of the film where you feel sweet and deeply bitter at the same time make you really to hug that creation, to really love that movie and to keep it in box near your most intimate things. A timeless jewel of art.
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