12-19-2015, 01:52 AM
Well, I liked Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Naughts so much that I decided to check out his The Draughtman’s Contract, which is highly touted by critics.
A cocky young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to produce twelve drawings of her husband’s estate. But he is clearly playing games with her and everyone involved. Though he does things for no apparent reason, there is a cold manipulative logic to all his actions.
This is a very sophisticated puzzle movie. Part of the fun is trying to figure out what is going on. But while I very much liked the movie Coherence for its complicated puzzle, all the manipulative cleverness in this movie comes at the cost of the characters. I found them all uniformly reprehensible.
Like Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Naughts, The Draughtman’s Contract employs a set of twins. These are played by Anthony and David Meyer, best known as the circus knife-throwing henchmen in the film Octopussy. But here they are very minor characters and don’t warrant calling this a doppelganger movie.
Overall, while The Draughtman’s Contract is very clever, beautifully filmed, and lauded by the critics, none of that counts for much if you don’t find the characters likable or compelling. I’d skip it.
A cocky young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to produce twelve drawings of her husband’s estate. But he is clearly playing games with her and everyone involved. Though he does things for no apparent reason, there is a cold manipulative logic to all his actions.
This is a very sophisticated puzzle movie. Part of the fun is trying to figure out what is going on. But while I very much liked the movie Coherence for its complicated puzzle, all the manipulative cleverness in this movie comes at the cost of the characters. I found them all uniformly reprehensible.
Like Greenaway’s A Zed and Two Naughts, The Draughtman’s Contract employs a set of twins. These are played by Anthony and David Meyer, best known as the circus knife-throwing henchmen in the film Octopussy. But here they are very minor characters and don’t warrant calling this a doppelganger movie.
Overall, while The Draughtman’s Contract is very clever, beautifully filmed, and lauded by the critics, none of that counts for much if you don’t find the characters likable or compelling. I’d skip it.
I'm nobody's pony.
