DROWNING BY NUMBERS (1988)
Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 118 Minutes 40 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Peter Greenaway
Cast: Dame Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Bernard Hill, Joely Richardson, Bryan Pringle, Jane Gurnett, Jason Edwards
Writer/director Peter Greenaway's Drowning By Numbers (1988) is a sumptuously filmed black comedy about three murderous married women - oddly, each is named Cissie Colpitts. We have grandmother Cissie no. 1 (Dame Joan Plowright, Tea with Mussolini), her daughter Cissie no. 2 (Juliet Stevenson, Truly Madly Deeply), and her niece Cissie no. 3 (Joely Richardson, Color Out of Space). At the start of the film the matriarch catches her philandering husband Jake (Bryan Pringle, Haunted Honeymoon) naked and drunkenly frolicking with a much younger woman (Jane Gurnett). When he drunkenly passes out in the bathtub she almost whimsically pushes his head beneath the surface, drowning him. She informs her daughters of what she has done, which comes as no great shock to them, and the trio decide they must cover-up the murder by roping in the local coroner Madgett (Bernard Hill, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) to proclaim the death an accidental drowning. He reluctantly agrees to do so but demands sexual favors in return, but the older than he matriarch strings him along and never gives into his carnal requests. As the film plays out the pair of younger Cissies follow the matriarchs footsteps, each drowning their husbands; one in the ocean, the other at a pool, and each time they rope in Madgett, with the dangling carrot promise of romantic favors, and again string him along. Only the sexual dynamo Cissie no. 3 allows him to at least squeeze her tit a bit while parked in a car, but not much else.
The movie is wonderfully offbeat, there are murders, cover-ups, and suspicious relatives who suspect foul-play throughout, but there's no sense of malice, dread or anger about it- it's all very quirky and has the distinct flavor of darkly comic fairytale. The trio of women are not the only oddball characters, Madgett himself as the impotent coroner himself is a master game player, and when he's not covering up another murder he entertains friends and the community with made-up games, joined by his son Smut (Jason Edwards), who himself is obsessed with the emasculated mythical character of Samson, games and roadkill, as well as a skip-rope, star counting young redhead that lives nearby, who also happens to narrate the film.
Numbers feature throughout the film, it is said that as you watch the film you can watch for the numbers 1-100 to appear in sequential order. I noticed most of the numbers but have not sat through the film with the sole purpose of numbers spotting, but some are quite prominent, while others are tucked away in the periphery, some even adorn the corpses of cattle, bees and mackerel fish.
The characters, despite being murderers or complicit therein, are so very charming; the dialogue is witty, the rapports between the characters is warm, witty and offbeat, it's just a deliciously weird murder tale. On top of that the visuals are painterly in their compositions, the film has a signature lighting style that gives it a fairytale feel, there's layers to the fore, mid and background that just make the images pop off the screen with atmospheric and often surreal lighting set-ups that bathe the film in swaths of gorgeous primaries, in my opinion this is as visually sumptuous as Suspiria, but without the dread and malice, this is actually quite a playful murder tale.
For fans of the erotic there's plenty of playful nudity throughout the film courtesy of the quite attractive Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson, and Jane Gurnett. The sexuality is treated quite playfully, though there is one scene of some popsicle-aided intercourse, a prelude to a drowning, that might be a bit shocking to the more prudish types out there, so just be aware.
Audio/Video: Drowning By Numbers (1988) arrives in region-free 4K UHD/BD from Severin Films sporting a fresh new 4K scan of the original negative supervised by Director Peter Greenaway. The new scan and 4K resolution offers mostly lush looking film grain with fantastic textures, sumptuous Dolby Vision enhanced color-grading, and deep inky blacks with superior contrast. The very specific lighting looks quite wonderful, the artful lensing by
cinematographer Sacha Vierny (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover) really captures the broad spectrum of color, and the Dolby Vision color-grading with it's wider color gamut does fine work enhancing the primaries, the pastoral countryside, seaside sights, and orange light of dawn look phenomenally vivid. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. The fidelity is quite nice, dialogue is never a chore to discern, acoustic elements sound authentic, and the score by Michael Nyman (The Piano), based on themes from Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E flat is full-bodied. The accompanying Blu-ray looks quite good as well, grain is better resolved on the 4K UHD disc but colors, even without the Dolby Vision assist are strong and nicely saturated throughout, and it sports the same uncompressed stereo audio.
Onto the extras we get a nice assortment of new Severin produced extras as well as an archival featurette. We start off with a patented sprawling Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Peter Greenaway, that's quite excellent. Then into the new 14-min Painting By Numbers – Interview With Peter Greenaway. In it the director gives a thorough fascinating and sprawling conversation, talking about returning to his roots with this film, his fascination with filming water, and his theories on shot composition/
geometry and narrative structures; plus how he feels that film is not a particularly good narrative medium. He also touches on the games as depicted in the film, and how cinema more and more is no longer a collective experience.
The 10-min Three Women And A Coroner – Interview With Actor Bernard Hill features the actor talking about visiting an actual coroner while researching the role, how he considers Greenaway a very important ingredient in the British film industry and how he feels working with him was a gift. He gets into the director's painterly approach to shot composition and a few quirky things about his style of directing, and the answer he received from the director regarding the numbers throughout the film.
There's also an archival 27-min featurette Fear Of Drowning (1988) with Peter Greenaway (and directed by Greenaway) where he speaks about the film, dissecting it's meticulous construction, synopsizing the story, it's components, influences on the visual style and highlighting the geometrical nature of the shot composition - it's quite fascinating and I am happy that they carried it over here. The featurette also features clips from an SD source, highlighting how terrific this new scan looks compared to the color-sapped VHS quality footage of yore. The disc is buttoned up with a Theatrical Trailer for the film and the aptly title 5-minute Some Greenaway Game Concepts featuring production artwork by Greenaway. The UHD has only the audio commentary and the trailer, while the accompanying Blu-ray features both of those, plus the new and archival extras. The 2-disc UHD/BD . arrives in a black dual-hub keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the theatrical poster artwork; inside the disc themselves feature separate artworks on each disc.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Writer/Director Peter Greenaway
- Painting By Numbers – Interview With Peter Greenaway (14 min)
- Three Women And A Coroner – Interview With Actor Bernard Hill (10 min)
- Fear Of Drowning (Archival Featurette) (27 min)
- Some Greenaway Game Concepts (5 min)
- Trailer (2 min)
While I have a faint memory of watching Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) at some point in my mid-teens I am dismally unfamiliar with his body of work, but I found this film to be so utterly fascinating that I hope to rectify that situation rather quickly. I do hope this release gets some proper notices and we see more Greenaway films getting special edition releases with new restorations coming our way. This release gets the highest recommendation, a superbly quirky murder tale with a stellar 4K UHD/Blu-ray presentation and host of terrific extras from Severin Films - this is easily one of my favorite film discoveries of 2023.
Screenshots from the Severin Films Blu-ray:
