‘Drowning by Numbers‘ (1988) belongs to the most prolific and successful decade of director Peter Greenaway‘s career. It was the penultimate film made in that decade and is apparently one of his most accessible films of that period. It has a relatively simple and easy-to-follow narrative structure, and for those who did not grasp the exact meaning of the events from the first occurrence, the same sequence of actions is repeated three times. Some of the characters are reminiscent of the evil criminals in the films of the Coen brothers, filmmakers who were building their fame in the same decade, characters who at certain moments are helped by luck more than they deserve, until fate catches up with them. For lovers of action comedies, however, I believe that the film risks seeming banal, and this because its purpose is before all to display an amazing range of details and quotes imported from folklore, literature, plastic arts and all acted by an anarchist logic descending from the artistic avant-garde of the first half of the 20th century. In fact, on a second viewing, ‘Drowning by Numbers‘ might become less comprehensible for fans of action movie genres, while the informed viewers, freed from following the story, will discover a universe of details and ornaments that will delight them.
The story, as far as it matters, begins with a murder. A pretty mature lady named Cissie Colpits catches her husband with another woman while they are enjoying themselves in two hot baths. Taking advantage of the two’s advanced state of intoxication, Cissie casually drowns her husband and reports the crime to the coroner. This position, I think specifically English, is a kind of locally elected judge who investigates deaths. If he decides that there was nothing suspicious, the police are not called to investigate. That’s exactly what the coroner named Madgett, who has set his eyes on the fresh widow, does. Madgett is a strange fellow himself (but what character is not strange in Peter Greenaway‘s films), art collector and possessor of many vices among which laziness is one of the least. He is aided in his investigations by his teenage son Smut, an imaginative boy who hunts butterflies and imagines games. The story repeats itself when Cissie Colpits 2 and Cissie Colpits 3, who may be the daughter and granddaughter of Cissie Colpits 1, also drown their sinful husbands by various methods. The neighbors start to get suspicious, the police are finally involved and the story gets complicated.
Peter Greenaway is one of those filmmakers who in each film invents another universe, with its own laws, with eccentric and colorful characters. Tim Burton and Wes Andersson are his illustrious colleagues. Their worlds descend from the literary tradition of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll. ‘Drowning by Numbers‘, which by the way has numerous associations taken from the world of fine arts, reminded me of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s paintings. From a distance they look like portraits, when you get closer you see that they are composed of fruit and plants expertly combined and positioned. At Greenaway, when you get even closer, you realize that the fruits are easily damaged. Physical decay and death are recurring themes in ‘Drowning by Numbers‘. Not only through what happens to the characters, but also through the filmed details or through symbols such as the ephemeral butterflies. Even the rhythm imposed by the numbers 1 to 100 that visually punctuate the story implies the finite time of human existence. The cinematography – loaded and decadent – is created by Sacha Vierny, a French cinematographer very familiar with surrealism, collaborator in the 50s and 60s on some of the masterpieces of directors like Resnais or Bunuel, who in the 80s worked a lot with Greenaway. The music is signed by another frequent collaborator of Peter Greenaway from that period – Michael Nyman. If it sounds obsessive, it’s no wonder, since the entire soundtrack is composed of variations on the same four measures from the second movement of Mozart’s Symphony in E, opus 39. ‘Drowning by Numbers‘ is a baroque film, rich in symbols, which demand to be discovered and deciphered, beyond an apparently light and accessible plot. Those who dare to watch or re-watch the film armed with patience and openness will not regret it.