92 suitcases, you say? 92 talents buried in the ground! The beginning of the new century English "classic" Greenway
I decided to celebrate the epic and made a film of three parts.
Why did he shoot this picture, entering the plot of the plot?
Mormonov, Third Reich, Soviets, in addition to Buldakov and Steklov,
When Petruccio is poor not able to write a simple script wisely,
Shame on yourself and your country?
Throughout his long filmmaking career, the Englishman Peter Greenaway remained invariably true to himself, producing dozens of incomprehensible, almost plotless, uninteresting, drawn-out and tedious cinematic crafts, claiming, in the opinion of their creator, to be called the high art of cinema, “another cinema.”
“Tulse Luper’s Suitcases”, this toothless, spineless, clumsy, jelly-like monster of English cinema, became a kind of result, if I may say, of the “creativity” of this British arthouse decadent. Having absorbed all the shortcomings of the author’s style of Greenway, first of all, as a screenwriter, Suitcases are a vivid example of what happens when a degenerate from art is given complete freedom of creativity, giving him the script and direction.
Offering the unfortunate viewer to plunge into this super-stretched movie swamp, filled with Greenway croaking, buzzing and fetid fumes, its creator forces us to spend more than six hours of our lives in vain, “enjoying” unhealthy aesthetics, endless and incoherent chatter, the lack of a strong and interesting plot, as well as his trademark irrelevant and worthless manner. The film is so exhausting that already after watching the first part of the “suitcase” trilogy, there is a desire or TV to break or shook through the window. If you, a respected viewer who thinks you're a movie aesthete, like to watch the naked bodies of old and fat gays, ugly and fat naked women for tens of minutes, while listening to the non-stop and multi-voiced pseudo-intellectual chatter, then Tulse Luper Suitcases is just what you need. Enjoy it! For more than six hours spent watching this decadent film work, you can read from 80 to 120 pages of a textbook or book, view from 3 to 4 normal films, walk, repeat up to 4 – 5 thousand foreign words (if you learn any language), well, or do a general cleaning in the apartment. Everything is better than watching the uninteresting and barely marked adventures of Petenka’s alter ego, listening for hours about the torment of Jews during the Second World War (a topic that Western filmmakers, apparently, will not tire of exploiting until the end of time), as well as other disgusting verbal nonsense. For example, about the smell of sperm or finger-made babies (doesn’t this hint at Petruccio’s own origin?). In addition, from the second half of the trilogy, Greenaway inserts in Suitcases footage from his past crafts, such as The Draftsman's Contract. Apparently, from despair to come up with something original and the desire to further stretch your “masterpiece”.
And, most offensively, the film does have a few funny phrases, entertainingly staged episodes and interesting scenario concepts, unfortunately, drowned in the disintegrated Greenaway kaleidoscope.
Just don’t think that while criticizing Greenway’s work, I was blind to some of the features of his author’s style, which can be considered, at least, remarkable. Such, for example, as bringing a fair share of theatricality to the cinema and drawing individual short episodes, with quite expressive acting of the actors. Even the signature Greenaway manner of the game can sometimes turn out to be in something to place. Here, only, the lack of dynamics and coherence of the plot reduces all interesting moments to nothing. Since Greenaway, apparently, considers the mannerism, theatricality and expressiveness of the game important in themselves, not accepting that in the art of storytelling (and cinema is, you will agree, one of the types of storytelling) it is only a tool, a tool that helps to tell a story, where the main element is, after all, a plot, for which a competent structure, embodied in the dynamic sequence of actions and words of the characters, constitutes it, the plot, soul and spirit, filling it and the whole film with authentic life.
Thus, the films of Peter Greenaway are stillborn or, at best, born in a coma and in a coma, the children of their author.
It’s a shame for the actors who spent their talent on “Tulse Luper Suitcases” and other greenaways.
1 out of 10
P.S. The author of this review is a humanist, as well as the author of the film in question, and shares the humanistic views of Peter Greenaway. My criticism is the critique of the manners by which Greenaway shares his beliefs.