Cannibalism is one of the most taboo plot devices that a movie (or any work of fiction) can possibly feature. It’s no surprise, then, that many films which feature cannibalism in some capacity fall into the horror genre, such asThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre(1974),Cannibal Holocaust(1980), andThe Silence of the Lambs(1991). Nevertheless, many filmmakers have used cannibalismfor more than just shock value, with recent films likeRaw(2016),Bones and All(2022), andSociety of the Snow(2023) even humanizing people who engage in cannibalism.
And then there’sPeter Greenaway’sThe Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover(1989). While the film doesn’t feature any cannibalism until its disturbing ending, it is unique in that it features cannibalism (or, rather, coercing another person into cannibalism) in a rather heroic manner. This ending, combined with the film’s expressionistic visual style and gruesome violence, has led to a multitude of interpretations regarding the film’s themes, including as a political allegory and as a coming-of-age story.
Which Character Is Which?
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The film’s title refers respectively to chef Richard Boarst (Richard Bohringer), violent gangster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon), Albert’s wife Georgina (Helen Mirren), and Michael (Alan Howard), with whom Georgina has a risky affair. Albert has recently purchased Boarst’s restaurant, “Le Hollandais,” and regularly dines there with his wife and henchmen. But Albert is rude, volatile, and abusive, leading Georgina to begin having secret trysts with Michael in the kitchen and bathrooms, with the restaurant’s sympathetic staff helping them hide from Albert.
Unfortunately, Albert ultimately finds out about the affair and, in a fit of rage, finds and brutally kills Michael. Georgina decides to get revenge by having Boarst cook Michael’s body and serve it to Albert, leading to the final sequence, in which Georgina forces Albert to take a bite from Michael’s cooked body before fatally shooting him.
A Violent and Colorful Stage Drama
Most of the film takes place in and around “Le Hollandais,” with many of the scenes being staged and shot like a play, giving the film a rather claustrophobic atmosphere. Furthermore, the film’s cinematography is defined bya wildly dynamic color scheme, with the restaurant’s dining room being washed in deep red, while the bathroom (where Georgina and Michael have several of their trysts) is solid white. Interestingly, Greenaway blatantly disregards continuity by having the colors of the characters' costumes change as they enter different rooms, as if they are in a dream world.
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Along those same lines, Roger Ebert argues that the overwhelmingly monochromatic coloring of these settings gives Georgina and Michael’s affair “a nightmare tinge” that warns the audience of the impending danger facing the couple.Artist Jeanne Silverthorne, meanwhile, argues that the film’s deliberately unrealistic visual style makes the violence in the film even more shocking and repulsive because “the artificiality makes an even less absorbent surface for the extreme violence than naturalism would.” Differences aside, both critics' perspectives agree that the expressionistic color scheme exacerbates, rather than mitigates, the brutality of the film.
What Is This Movie Even About?
Given the time and place in which the film was made — the U.K. in the 1980s — many critics have interpreted it as a condemnation of the conservative and austere policies of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Ebert, citing these critics, maps out the characters' real-world metaphorical counterparts as follows: “Cook = Civil servants, dutiful citizens. Thief = Thatcher’s arrogance and support of the greedy. Wife = Britannia. Lover = Ineffectual opposition by leftists and intellectuals.”
Through this lens, the ending, in which Albert is forced to shamefully eat one of his own victims, drives home the film’s commentary on how the rich and powerful exploit, or “cannibalize,” the bodies of the poor and working class (i.e. the restaurant staff) for their own gain, while allowing viewers the vicarious catharsis ofseeing the rich and powerful face the musicvia Georgina shooting Albert.
Silverthorne, however, has a less overtly political interpretation of the film and its ending. She reads the movie as a kind of coming-of-age story, in which the initially naive Georgina learns how to fend for herself in a cruel world. To that point, she points out that the film parallels the story of the Garden of Eden: “Naked like the fallen Adam and Eve, they are confronted by the decay of the flesh and expelled from the paradise of the restaurant.” Ebert himself echoes this interpretation, suggesting that the film is about how “the timid majority…distracts itself with romance and escapism to avoid facing up to the bully-boys.”
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Silverthrone suggests that Michael’s murder is punishment for the couple’s “Naiveté, thinking that love can be ‘pure.'” And, by forcing Albert to cannibalize her murdered lover before murdering him herself, Silverthorne argues that Georgina is “‘sinking’ to Albert’s level, accepting his premise that violence is absolute.” Silverthorne is not saying that Georgina has become evil and sadistic like Albert, but, rather, that “Albert’s savagery has freed her…made her newly independent.” Silverthorne even detects a kind of sheepish feminism in the film’s treatment of Georgina: “[Greenaway] isvoyeuristically implicated in the exploitation of a woman’s sexualitybut willing to help her enjoy it and then turn the tables on her oppressor.”
What makesThe Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Loverso brilliant is that it allows for so many interpretations, including Ebert’s and Silverthorne’s, without clearly favoring one over another. It’s so unconventional and idiosyncratic in terms of both narrative and form that the viewer is left with no choice but to use their own experiences and worldviews in order to make sense of it all. The film also deserves props for its creative and original use of cannibalism as a narrative tool. Who says that cannibalism in movies always has to be perpetrated by the bad guys?
Sadly,The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Loveris not currently available on any streaming platforms, but it is available to bepurchased on Blu-ray.
