User Reviews

An American architect (Dennehy) comes to Rome with his wife to create an exhibition he's been working on for 10years. He is troubled though by a terrible pain in his stomach.

Like all Greenaway's projects, this is decidedly off kilter - though not as much as usual - with his usual structured picture framing and colour (red and green) and fabulous use of music. The wonderful soundtrack here is not by Nyman, but is very similar.

Dennehy is perfect in the lead role, but Chloe Webb as his wife puts in a rather strange stilted performance as his wife.

This starts slow but improves as it goes along as Dennehy's story unfolds. Not for everyone, but lovers of the great director will enjoy this, even if it is more orthodox than usual.

Starring Brian Dennehy, an unusual actor for a Peter Greenaway film, as Kracklite, an architect, a career we don't often see explored in cinema, Greenaway's 'Belly of an Architect' is somehow bigger and more emotionally ambitious than most of his other works, which lack human resonance. In his other films, the characters are uniformly British and so Greenaway's coldness and archness toward them is indicative of a general misanthropy. Here, it's aimed squarely at Romans, whose loose morals and carnivorous practices contrast with the enormity of Kracklite's ego and generosity of spirit. His stomach is being eaten away by some unknown illness or cancer, and this serves as a metaphor for his ego being eaten away by the carnivorousness of Roman culture. His wife, his identity (which is a vicarious one, given his devotion/debt to his idol, Bouleé) and his work are being repossessed by the conquestful Roman carnivores who aim to destroy him simply for the material gain of taking what is so ostentatiously his. But his devotion to Bouleé, his need to make Bouleé's work more widely known, is not a singular or altruistic act; the exhibition he is organizing will make Bouleé more commercial and accessible, but it will also be an addendum to his own career, a manifestation of his ego. His diary is written in the form of letters to Bouleé, to whom he is almost praying as his own personal God. And his devotion to this God is not a selfless one, since Bouleé is so inexorably an element of his own identity.

Rome and its buildings are given a golden, postmodern glow, their clarity enhanced by Wim Mertens' musical score, which adds its own sunlight to the proceedings. But the sunlight that glows throughout Rome and permeates the aura of the film is an impersonal one, an indifferent one, as ancient as the ruins of Rome, which our Roman characters observe have been more useful and influential as ruins than they were prior. "They're better as ruines," a character observes. "Your imagination compensates for what you don't see, like a woman with clothes on." The Romans are depicted here as carnivores (and the word "carnivore" is used multiple times) who not only want to devour and repossess, but want to strip. Brian Dennehy's performance here is indeed stripped, larger than life, fiery. He explodes on screen, bringing the film into another realm, introducing emotional dimensions not often seen in the films of Greenaway; and in this, the film has a power that inhabits the movie's symmetrical form (mostly every shot is symmetrical), its architecture, and threatens to destroy it. The coldness that is typical of Greenaway, that architecturized godlessness, is at war with fiery human passion in all its flawed nakedness.

Greenaway's movies, in their arctic wit and obsession with symmetry, are cinema as architecture more so than storytelling, so 'The Belly of an Architect,' contrary to the claim by many that it's his most mainstream and therefore weakest work, is perhaps his most appropriate film, and maybe his best

Brian Dennehy and Chloe Webb come to Rome. He's an architect who has been working for ten years on an exhibit about Etienne-Louis Boullee, and it has reached the stage where the physical labor has to be done. As the project moves sluggishly forward, Dennehy can't figure out where the money is going. All he knows is that Roman architect Lambert Wilson is carrying on an affair with Miss Webb, angling to take over the exhibit, and he has new and distressing pains in his gut.

Peter Greenaway directs High Art films that flirt with the limits of watchability -- I've never been able to get past the initial image in PROSPERO'S BOOK, of John Gielgud in hs bath, watered by cherubs like a garden fountain. This one is very watchable, with its bits of color, and Dennehy's solid performance against the wreckage of classical art through the movie's Rome; there's one funny moment when he uses the feet of a colossal sculpture to scratch his back. Yet, in the end, Dennehy's performance takes over the entire movie, leaving everyone else as bit players. Others' motives, except for Lambert's greed, remain obscure. Is Greenaway satirizing the excessive intellectualization of a practical art of which he himself is guilty?

One of my favorite Greenaway films. Story, visuals, metaphor, acting, music...it's got it all. The visuals of Rome are stunning. Wim Mertens' musical accompaniment is brilliant and on par with any modern minimalist composition. After years of seeing his TV roles, I was completely floored by the depth and authenticity Brian Dennehey brought to the main character. I've watched this film at least a dozen times over the years and enjoy it thoroughly each time. Unlike a previous reviewer, I don't see the need to judge this film based on how much it resembles previous or subsequent Greenaway films. "Belly of An Architect" is not as abstract as some of the other Greenaway films, but that shouldn't be viewed as a negative. The film is great and rich in its own right. I highly recommend it.

"The Belly of an Architect" is one of those films, not unlike another Greenaway effort "The Pillow Book", which languishes somewhere between reality and the surreal and just beyond the realm of the understandable. The film, which tells of the mental deterioration of an architect, features some postcard quality shots of Rome, good work by Dennehy, and little else. Webb seems miscast; performances seem scripted and staged; too much emphasis on art and not enough on story; and the Tivo'd version I watched was of poor video quality. Over the top stuff which makes dinner table conversation for dilettantes but tedium for the film going public.

Greenaway's visuals (which betray his origins as a painter in almost every gorgeously composed shot) are sumptuous. Wim Mertens score is mesmerizing. Add them to Brian Dennehy's towering performance as obsessed, betrayed, and ultimately dying American architect Stourley Kracklite and you have something very special. Kracklite is in Rome battling to put on an exhibition to his idol, 18th century French architect Etienne Louis Boulet. His young wife (Webb) betrays him, the natives scheme to undermine his exhibition and he begins to crumble physically like the ruins of the eternal city around him. The story, largely carried on Dennehy's massive shoulders, is almost incidental to the glorious, poetic footage of Rome. It is so movingly beautiful that, when I finally got around to visiting the city (a trip in no small part inspired by this film) the reality of the place couldn't compete. If you can, watch this on a big screen with the best possible suround-sound. If you can't, watch it anyway.

Didn't realize this was by an 'artist' or wouldn't have bothered. The story had possibilities - an American architect comes to Rome to oversee an exhibition. His much younger wife starts an affair and his life unravels. However, the Italians he interacts with are caricatures, and we don't know why. Why does his wife start the affair when she was obviously happy at the beginning? Dennehy gives a very good performance of a person of whom we don't get to understand. Many of the iconic sites of Rome are shown, but the photographic quality - at least of the version I saw - was quite poor. In short, this film is pointless and not entertaining. Was the director depressed or just trying to depress us?

You always know going into a Peter Greenaway film that, for better or for worse, you are going to get something a bit left-field. The Belly of an Architect is really no different in this regard. This one tells the tale of an American architect who travels to Rome with his young wife to supervise an exhibition celebrating the 18th century architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. Very soon after arrival both he and his wife experience contrasting activity in their bellies, for him it is severe abdominal pains while she falls pregnant. To complicate matters, they soon begin affairs with other people. The film essentially then details the architects mental deterioration, which includes writing postcards to his long deceased doppelganger Boullée.

This one has to go down as one of Greenaway's more accessible films. It has an actual story that is underpinned by a good central performance from Brian Dennehy. But its maybe the very fact that it skirts so close to realistic drama that is one of the main problems, as Greenaway is usually best when he does precisely the opposite. The story is really quite boring and the acting aside from Dennehy not all that good – Chloe Webb being particularly flat as his wife; look out also for Stefania (Suspiria) Cassini sporting an unfamiliar cropped 80's barnet. The visuals, while certainly nicely composed, aren't all that memorable. Given that the setting is Rome, there are many shots of that cities peerless architecture, although that all gets almost a bit travelogue to a certain extent. I think this film, therefore, is one for Greenaway devotees almost exclusively as in order to get a lot out of it you have to be interested in his ideas. While I have liked several of his films, I can't deny that, even in the cases of the ones I liked most, his films can be somewhat annoying. Dennehy really helps draw us in to events though and makes a good stab at involving us but it's difficult to care too much about these stiff characters populating a narrative that is both distant and very cold emotionally. Boullée himself is a typically absurd Greenaway figure, in that very little of his architecture ever came to be built, so it's difficult to ever imagine a high profile retrospective of his work ever happening. His rounded, domed buildings mimic the belly of the title, as does his name. So there are many links and symmetries in the story if you are at all interested in that kind of thing. But, while some of the photography was nice and it did have a good score from one of the members of Kraftwerk, it was overall a little tedious for me.

I only can say that Brian Dennehy is not the typical Greenaway actor, but Greenaway gets to work with him in order to take him to the summit of his work. It is over the fat policeman bored of what he does, alcoholic, disenchanted... Here, the American Architect, his wife, the exhibition, the Italian rival, everything is planned, and Greenway's work with actors gets the best performance Brian could ever have dreamt about. Besides, Peter Greenaway has made his masterpiece with this film in my opinion. I saw it for the first time when I was 16 (now, I'm 33) and I got truly impressed, thinking it was the best movie I had seen in my whole life. That is not much to say. Now, at 33, every time I see it I think the very same thing. Enjoy Greenaway's masterpiece!

It is a crying shame that not many amusing films about human anatomy have been made.British film "Belly of an architect" fills this artistic vacuum by being an outstanding film about architecture,belly and infidelity.In some ways,British cinema author Peter Greenaway must be hailed as a genius director especially for the manner in which he has linked a part of human body with a creative art.His film is a vivid description of an artist's progressive descent into hell.This is one of the most important parts played by American actor Brian Dennehy.While watching this film,it can be surmised that some of the viewers would surely be tempted to link hypochondria with an artist's descent into hell.However, dedicated viewers would be surprised to learn that Hypochondria is not this film's main theme.This is a film about boredom,infidelity and general nature of uselessness.This is a film to watch if one wishes to explore richness of British cinema especially films directed by Peter Greenaway.There is really good photography by veteran French DOP Sacha Vierney.Peter Greenaway has also shown some good views of Rome.This might help viewers to ascertain how Italians view art and American people.From a bored housewife's point this is a film in which no one opts for a direct killing.This is the reasons why strange conditions are created in such a manner that people automatically get frustrated and decide to kill themselves.

This has to be one of the most symmetrical movies ever made. The scenery is wonderful - but then, shooting in Rome, I suspect it would be hard NOT to point a camera and come up with and interesting and beautiful shot - but its all so so so symmetrical. Everything is in the middle of the frame - you could watch the whole movie without moving your eyes once. It would be hypnotising - except for the sheer tedium of the story.

I have found the other Greenaway films I have seen (Draughtsman's Contract, Prospero's Books, Drowning by Numbers) fascinating, lush, decadent and funny movies.

Belly of an Architect is just dull

• but very symmetrical.

I always know I can turn to Greenaway for nested worlds. He's one of few who can - not always mind, but the few occasions are precious - align the notions of image, how they project outwards to form what we know of reality - an empty field of anxious, random forces tossing us around - and the interior springwell from where these images flow out and which reveals ourselves to be in control of them. The play is usually given to us by some sort of fiction passing as real, or a charade within another, a story within itself, so that we may be directed from the confines of the narrow frame into a broader view that includes it.

The idea is especially powerful in the context of architecture, that we use form to project outwards a set of ideals but, having understood ourselves eventually circumscribed by structures that describe us, we can then use them to describe the inner landscape.

So indeed, we stroll around one such interior Rome, where earlier decadence or glory, or masks thereof, greeting us from marble balustrades and rows of pillars reflect inside. A city so ornately decorated and cast in stone, as though man would outlast his follies.

Into this comes an American architect - the man whose folly is to build things that last - to stage an exhibition for some obscure French architect who died 180 years ago. Italians are not too happy that he hasn't picked one of their own, but they oblige to finance nonetheless.

There are two broad ideas that Greenaway is careful to lightly caress, tease out their potential implications, but finally circumnavigate. The film would have been lesser had it settled on either, or is perhaps greater for encompassing both.

One is the doubling; the architect begins to imagine himself as his older counterpart, writing letters to him in the form of private confessional; then begins imagining himself as emperor Augustus, trapped in the same ploy of marital infidelity and murder. He replicates these stories around him. So these people overlap and are mirrored with bellies, bellies aching with the toll of creation. At this point you may think it is all going to be another film about the creative person losing himself in the mind, merging life with narrative.

The other is, as always with Greenaway, about all this as doubling for the making of the film. It's a film-within device, make no mistake. So the visionary artist is increasingly frustrated by lackeys, ignorant money-men, virulent antagonists scheming to usurp him; energy is wasted in duplicitous dinner parties and idle, but always more or less venomous, chit-chat, until eventually finds himself embittered and alone in his own set.

But it is not merely about the price of genius, or a satire of the contemporary civilized arena that it has to bleed into.

Look for the scene with his doctor in front of the busts of emperors; each bust a face and story, one decadent and evil, another perhaps famed as wise, but all inadvertently gone. A little further down is a bust without name, it could be anyone's, and whatever story will be inscribed upon it, it's again only destined to join this gallery of fiction. It is important to see these follies, but more important to see the continuity.

So it is this acceptance on the part of the architect, the man who builds things not only to last but to be beautiful in time, of the turn of the wheel, decline through rebirth. It is powerful stuff to see; the scene in the police station near the end, where he is simply asked name and age, whether married or not. He is free to go then. He has been jotted down in the ledgers.

The final scenes in the exhibition center echo with this casual dismissal of a life lived, a casual but sweet, relieving it would seem, departure after so much grief with nothing to weigh on the shoulders. He attends the exhibition, the work of a lifetime, from the balustrade above, from the vantage point of not being involved anymore. Everything looks like a small ceremony from there. So this is the nested world that matters; not the exhibition, but the creative life on the ego-redemptive journey through life at large, purging itself of itself, after the painful struggle to master the world building pantheons finally submitting to be the mastered world, transient, as it comes into being and goes again.

As he goes, new life is born down below - and plays, again and again it would seem, before the colossal marble structures.

It is perhaps the ideal Greenaway film; the self-referential tics are all present, the framework ornate, but instead of chaotic it is all mastered into a pillar that supports, unifies vision. The architect - on more levels than one - coming to terms with the architecture of a transient life.

Did Mr. Greenaway's symmetrical script undergo modification during pre-production? Is this the story of an Anglo-Saxon man in a mid-life crisis entrapped in a delirious paranoid nightmare in the heart of 'latin' sexuality? The young Italian architect (Caspasian) is played by a French actor who has, it is true, a Roman nose. It embarrasses to see Mr. Greenaway's very British prep. school preoccupations with 'foreigners' surface in such a supposedly intellectual exercise as this. At least 'A zed and Two Naughts' was 'camp' and somewhat funny. Mr. Greenaway remains an eager film student trying to provoke mediocre coffee-table critics into a superficial cock-fight. Resnais is a cut above all this. All respect to Brian Dennehy. The Scene with the young doctor was nicely handled.

I first saw this film some time after Greenaway's biggest successes and found it a rather painful experience. Indeed I began to suffer the beginnings of a stomach complaint that seemed to mirror that of the architect here. The (imagined?) disturbance disappeared but I was always loathe to revisit the piece. Finally gathering up the confidence to face my demons I find them rather unconvincing, this time around. Brian Dennehy seems an odd choice in the lead and I find him irritating from the start. Chloe Webb is an even stranger choice with a voice and diction that might suggest English were not her first language, though it is. Perhaps it was a hangover from playing a punk in the previous year's Sid and Nancy. The film always looks great but then surely no surprise as this is the man who shot Last Year at Marienbad although I am made to wonder this might have looked even better in black and white like that classic. This would have played better with the various buildings, drawings and architectural features of Rome. Such is the power of the visuals, of course and the seeming shortfalls in the central performances as to cause one to notice more the over theatrical movements of groups of people on camera and the stilted delivery of rather strained dialogue. The film opens brilliantly with the architect and his wife happily and joyfully making love as their train enters Italy. Unfortunately there is never such a moment again, for the emphasis is more on inanimate objects and their aesthetic qualities. Even the architect's stomach complaints seem not to make him more human for as he begins to compare himself obsessively to his beloved Boullee, his reason for coming to Rome, we seem to see a man being eaten up from inside. Whether this is caused by jealousy of the ancient architect, the young Italian who seems to have more than his eyes on his wife or simply his young wife who is clearly no longer content to simply sit at his feet, is unclear. For all that it is a compelling watch, firstly because it is so well shot and secondly because even though we have no liking for the main characters, interest in the pending exhibition or even the fate of the architect, we are drawn, as in some Shakespeare play, into the doom laden pit of obsession and greed, if for no other reason than to gloat.

It was a shock for me to discover having watched several of Peter Greenaway's films, and having loved many, that this for me, is easily his best from what I've seen. I will temper that by saying that I saw this in the cinema, and the cinema does wonders for many films. I find Greenaway's Baby of Macon, for example, has too much detail and visual complexity to be particularly accessible via home viewing. Greenaway has indeed been criticised for an overly painterly approach to detail in his films, which some deem not fit for a medium with a moving image. His long time collaborator cinematographer Sacha Vierny for example considered Prospero's Books a failure for the over-cluttering with visual detail that was cinematically indigestible.

The late Sacha Vierny doesn't get talked about nearly enough, other than Belly and most of the famous Greenaway films, he shot Last Year in Marienbad for Resnais, as well as the majority of the famous pre-80s Resnais movies; The Three Crowns of the Sailor, amongst others for Ruiz; Bof Anatomie d'un Livreur for Faraldo, a marvellous though little seen film; Belle de Jour for Bunuel; La Femme Publique and others for Zulawski; as well as collaborations with Chris Marker, Maguerite Duras, and Sally Potter. The critical part he played in these great movies is rarely sung. As Vierny was not interested in fame and rarely gave interviews, how much direction he took and how much of his own artistry he plyed will forever remain an enigma. As with most of this work, The Belly of An Architect is a really great looking film.

The story of this film is about an architect played by Brian Dennehy, called Stourley Kracklite, if you can believe such an indigestible name, hinting at gastric stagnancy and duodenal eructations. In consonancy with his name, he spends the movie plagued by sluggish prickly guts. Kracklite has always admired an obscure 18th century French architect called Étienne-Louis Boullée, a real-life architect who was famous more for his astonishing designs than for actual won commissions (this has often been a hazard for architects I believe). Make good use of the internet or your library and look up his magnificently insane design for Newton's tomb, which was never taken up, or his sprawling design for the Bibliothque Nationale. Due to his overreaching ambition he therefore ended up making mostly private homes, and there's only a handful of his built projects left in existence.

So Kracklite has finished with making his own buildings, and spent the last ten years of his life planning an exhibition on Boullée to be held in Rome. There are a lot of typical Greenaway features here, obsession with food, cuckoldry, a battle between an older and younger man. Somehow Greenaway managed here to take his usual stuff beyond an academic game to a place where there is mythos, and poesy. Greenaway for me is a director with a deep feeling for lifecycle, he doesn't present children as small adults, or middle aged men as ephebes with jowls and paunches.

For me it's a film about lifecycle and meaning, and homage to genius. I just adore it.

American architect Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) arrives in Italy to supervising an exhibition for French architect Boullée. His wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) seem to love him. He starts suffering from stomach pains and his life falls apart.

The camera style is set further away to take in the massive architecture of the locations. There are few close ups and often times, the characters are set small on the screen. It elevates Stourley's isolation and detachment from the general humanity. There are few personal crowds. In fact, exteriors are mostly empty of people other than the other needed characters and traffic. It does make the movie a little distancing. It's somewhat different and interesting. It's also a little tiring which is the desired effects.

The ebullient Brian Dennehy gives a fine performance as Stourley Kracklite, an American architect who is in Rome with his younger wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to arrange an exhibition on the French architect Etienne-Louis Boullée. Kracklite is obsessed with Boullée and even writes letters to him. Kracklite's life soon begins to deteriorate. He starts to suffer excruciating stomach pains and vomits each time he eats. He even thinks that his wife is poisoning him. His wife then falls pregnant and has an affair with Kracklite's rival architect, Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Kracklite then sleeps with Speckler's sister, to get some sort of satisfaction. Speckler intrudes while they are having sex, and announces, "having sex with your pregnant wife is perfect, because I don't need to use contraception". Kracklite then punches him on the nose. Speckler's sister then says, "Don't put your blood on my white towel."

The film follows the parallels of these two unappreciated architects from different eras. The film is memorable for Dennehy's (an actor who is also unappreciated) remarkable performance. Also, the beautiful cinematography by Greenaway's trusty DOP Sacha Vierny makes the film very easy to look at. From the ancient architecture of Rome, to a painting-like bowl of figs, it is pristine-looking. Michael Nyman is absent, but the music by Wim Mertens is splendid. This film was made in between A Zed & Two Noughts and Drowning by Numbers, and it is quite unlike those two films, which, I think, are superior to this in the way they offer us a much more enigmatic, abstract concept. But even an ever so slightly lesser Greenaway film is a thing to behold.

The Belly of an Architect feels a tiny bit dull in places but also kind of engaging or maybe at least intriguing more often than not. I think such a confused reaction is a sign that much of it went right over my head, but the way the film looks, feels, and subtly builds in emotional intensity (not exploding with visceral violence or horror like some other Peter Greenaway films) keeps it interesting.

It also feels, at its core, a little more digestible and followable than most of Greenaway's other stuff, and that made it weirdly unsettling in another way altogether. I got suspicious and maybe even a little paranoid that it was lulling me into a false sense of security, which also added another wrinkle to the whole thing.

It's not top-tier by his standards, but I feel like if you've enjoyed or connected with at least one Greenaway film before, The Belly of an Architect is easy to recommend.

Undoubtedly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It was the cheapest DVD in the store, but it had all these blurbs on it about how gorgeous and artful it was, so I bought it. Who made this thing ...Bernie Madoff? Even though it appears to have been shown in occasional art houses around 1990, this film could very well have been a straight to DVD production (assuming that there even were DVDs in 1987 when it was made.) If not, it must have been a scam of some sort. Not even the lowest Italian swords and sandals flick could possibly plumb the movie-making depths as much as this movie.

So, that's life. Barnes and Noble has my $5.00, the State of Texas has another 40 cents or so in taxes, and the garbage man has another crappy movie to add to his collection of garbage can DVDs.

This is all about it!A spectacular drama so disturbing to become an "existence thriller".A deep and thorough look into the soul and the brain of a creative (in his very own way indeed) man.Psychosis breaks in, out of nowhere, to this man's mind and cripples his emotions, his thought and finally his life.The order mentioned before is exactly the event line of the film.Dark sides of our mind are brutally exposed and true inspiration appears to be not further than a step or two from madness.Excellent music that can both stand alone and brilliantly combine with the work, is what makes the film a true classic.A must see for everyone with a sense in real art.

"If Greenaway's script can be reckoned as bland and unfocused, like a piece of spent chewing gum, even the belly fascination peters out without any fuss. His visual formalism finds a fertile ground in "the Eternal City" (a supper banquet in front of the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, Mausoleum of Augustus, Colosseo Quadrato, Piazza Navona, Piazza Venezia and Victor Emmanuel II Monument, the latter is where the eventual exhibition takes palce) and its environs (Villa Adriana in Tivoli). His painterly affinity and inspiration is effused onto the film's mise en scène and composition, expressed in striking colorways, for example, color green is often associated with Stourley, suggesting his cuckolded misfortune.

As if Greenaway is obliviously entranced by the magnificence of Rome, he simply wants to make a film in the city, to capture its astounding centuries-old architectonic accomplishments, ergo, the story itself becomes sort of a second banana. His "death in Rome" jeremiad is all over bar the shouting when Stourley raises Cain towards two dining ladies, it is his death rattle, all hat and no cattle."

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Brian, except for the belly part, seemed to have exactly the opposite type of personality and physiognomy to play the central character. He had a big project to complete (beautiful architecture photography, by the way). His marriage and body are falling apart and he barely cracks a wrinkle.

This may have been part of Greenaway's strategy of casting characters against obvious type (or maybe Brian was the largest major actor available). But this time it comes off as neither comedy or tragedy.

Don't let this lapse by Greenaway turn you off to his other weirdness.