THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT Movie Review

An American architect named Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) arrives in Rome to act as curator of an exhibition in tribute to a legendary 18th-century architect. Strange events and goings-on abound, including Kracklite's suspicions that his expectant wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) is having an affair—possibly with an unctuous professional rival (Lambert Wilson). This is a moderately interesting addition to the Greenaway canon, filmed between his clever A Zed and Two Noughts and the far more tantalizing Drowning by Numbers, Belly of an Architect, but its rigidity finally becomes deadly. Brian Dennehy's plugged-in, fully awake screen presence periodically sparks the proceedings to life, but even he can't survive the director's strict and stifling structural mold. Even if you can't make heads or tails of this movie (or stop caring to), take heart; at the very least there's always something fabulous to look at—Rome itself has rarely appeared more mysterious or seductive on-screen. Greenaway's eye never fails him, even when his storyline does.

NEXT STOP … The Draughtsman's Contract, The Pillow Book, The Fountainhead

1991 (R) 119m/C GB IT Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, Lambert Wilson, Sergio Fantoni, Geoffrey Copleston, Marino Mase; D: Peter Greenaway; W: Peter Greenaway; C: Sacha Vierny; M: Glenn Branca, Wim Mertens. VHS.LV NO