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It's been over 20 years since Peter Greenaway first announced his arrival as a feature filmmaker of considerable talent, and it's fair to say his fascinating debut hasn't aged a bit.
Still as disconcerting as it was back in 1982, this stylized portrait of lust, art, and murder most foul among England's aristocracy has retained all its capacity to mesmerise and disturb.
In a provincial country house, renowned draughtsman Mr Neville (Anthony Higgins) is contracted to draw 12 pictures of the property by Mrs Herbert (Janet Suzman), the wife of the cantankerous owner (Dave Hill). The terms and conditions of the agreement are carefully arranged: Neville will draw all 12 pictures over the course of 14 days at a price of £8 per picture. She will devote a certain part of each day to satisfying his pleasures.
Full of the bawdy licentiousness and scabrous wit of the Jacobean era, Greenaway's debut is one of the most captivating films of his far-from-dull career.
Filmed with careful precision in a series of stylized tableaux in which the camera remains immobile (a clever approximation of the draughtsman's own work), Greenaway's film is memorable for some hilariously camp performances (Higgins is perfect) and a marvellously mercurial score from Michael Nyman.
It's also a cracking little mystery tale, enveloped in an air of insouciant wit that's the equal of the verbal fencing of Patrice Leconte's "Ridicule".
Upsetting everyone with his charismatic yet sarcastic airs and graces, Neville receives his comeuppance as he realises that his pictures are offering clues as to the whereabouts of the house's missing owner. It's a mystery that, in true Jacobean style, will end in cuckoldry, recriminations and a brutal bloodbath.
Playful, witty and viciously acerbic, "The Draughtsman's Contract" is a sterling reminder of a time when British cinema could hold its head up high with the best that Europe had to offer.
