Drowning by Numbers (1988)

Best movie of this year hands down!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Peter Greenaway's film Drowning By Numbers certainly has an interesting and unique visual style and some very strong performances. However, in the final analysis I didn't really care much about the story on screen. The film opens with a young girl in a large, star-spangled dress counting out 100 different stars. The framing of the scene is compelling and curious, but ultimately pointless. Throughout the film, various things are numbered in sequential order. After the girl is finished jumping rope, an older woman passes by and proceeds to drown her husband in a tub after he has had an amorous interlude with a younger woman. He doesn't put up much of a struggle and there are numerous apples involved in the romantic escapade, and butterflies too. Eventually the film revolves around the woman's daughter and granddaughter also drowning their husbands with the complicity of the local coroner. Amid this, there are games with ridiculous rules; numbered cows; numerous insects; a self-circumcision; runners numbered 70 and 71 who attend a series of funerals and no compelling narrative. The interesting framing of many scenes held my interest for ten or fifteen minutes, for the next 100 or so I found myself wondering, "Why should I care?"

I find this film extremely entertaining and also appallingly tragic - because of the age old truths it portrays.The major truth I see is the misuse of power by men AND by women. Two different types of power usually, but each as bad as the other in the awful FINAL horrific result - the deaths of the innocent boy and girl children.Misuse of power by men: 1) the Coroner- entrusted with ensuring people's deaths are investigated, covers up murders. Abuse of power by someone in a traditional place of MALE authority.2) The policeman, who is apparently on his way out from visiting a prostitute, brings all hell down on the Coroner when he sees innocent photos of his son in his shorts. The Coroner is clearly NOT a paedophile, but an egregious accessory to murder. The paedophilia is possibly more in the mind of the policeman, while ignoring the murder spree around him.3) Drunken male yahoos mowing down the little girl in their car, accidentally or just for fun, but with no remorse.Misuse of power by women: With Political Correctness and the Women's Lib movement this is a very brave though fairly subtly handled truth portrayed by Greenaway: how women can be just as violent and murderous to men as visa versa.Cissie Colpitts 1 drowns her drunken fornicating husband with about as much passion as someone watching a mayfly drown. She pushes him down GENTLY again and again as he is too inebriated to resist. Talk about murder ONE! Almost psychotic detachment. Note how she then goes on to admire her husbands young lover "she has the fine fingers of needlecraft." (paraphrased). This is womanhood against manhood and it's only just beginning.There follows a succession of women who kill their husbands by drowning, (the traditional method of disposing of rats). The men are a mixed bunch from chauvinist bastards to loving devoted husbands, but the women still dispose of them with the same absolute lack of remorse or even care - like the woman who drowns her devoted husband in the pool, she grunts as she leaves the pool containing his drowned corpse, grunting one may feel with horror of the murder, but nope, it's just EXERTION, she sportily dives back in for a few more laps OVER HIS DEAD BODY.Meanwhile Cissie Colpitts 1 corrals the coroner to cover up more and more male culling. And watch the SUBTLE use of ACCUSATORY tone as she manipulates the weak figure of MALE POWER the Coroner, listen to the conversations as they rove around in his eerily lit car. She keeps this up to the end, accusing away while at the same time being a most awful criminal. This is the sociopath who knows no conscience – only methods of manipulating people.This accusatory control is a sort of quiet "feminine" use of power that often drives men to death, literal or psychological (which men can use just as well, just not sensitive New Age men!)Greenaway reveals that it is not just the obvious power of the "strong male" that kills. It is as if some ancient sisterhood is being invoked and a culling of the "drone" males is being led by this very witchy Queen Bee figure. Anyone who is a part of landed English families will know characters like that, and the ancient heritage they represent!And as those background numbers crank up to 100 with a terrible inevitability it is always this Queen Bee that is calling the shots. As the police close in on the Coroner (on suspicion of Paedophilia?? The women aren't the only twisted ones here), Cissie Colpitts 1 takes charge and under the guise of offering escape prescribes the only way for the male Coroner who has outlived his usefulness: DEATH BY DROWNING.For someone who watches Australian TV with ads (which are distributed worldwide, they are one of our major exports it seems) that constantly preach that women should cheat, spit on, assault, castrate and even literally KILL men for any misdemeanour or just for fun (these were two famous ads) – apparently as payback for ancient GROUP ill treatment (?) - I can't help but wonder about Greenaway's prescience at pointing to Western Society that is now handling the age old battle of the sexes in a way that results in just the same old (often hidden, rarely understood) emotional and physical mayhem despite whatever "progress" we think has been made.Murder can be seen as all types of "murder" including emotional murder. And it must be stressed that Greenaway makes it clear that men can be just as culpable. Just that the current state of play may be putting the modern male very much in danger in a struggle possibly manipulated by a 3rd evil force embodied by such as Cissie Colpitts 1 who is about as feminine as Lucrecia Borgia.In the end it is the children, the future, that suffer the final deaths. The son, left alone by the powers of the male law supposedly "protecting him" and his selfish Dad, and the little skipping girl - run down by a couple of drunken male yahoos.As to her possible symbolism, as the daughter of a fortune teller sort of mother who also seems to be a whore on the side … Perhaps she is the "New Age" hopeful starry eyed belief system that, as the bastard child of ancient mysticism, has given such hope to millions in the West, but in fact has just blinded them to the insidious loss of HUMAN VALUE that has been going on since the end of the 70's. In the end even SHE gets the chop……The words of a Cissie Colpits 1 person I know are explained in this movie: "why do you care about PEOPLE – life is just a GAME!"

I enjoy the films of Peter Greenaway. "The Cook the Thief his Wife and her Lover" and "the Pillowbook" are both films that are unique and visionary. Peter Greenaway is like a British David Lynch. Some critics get frustrated by Greenaway, claiming his films are self indulgent. I feel self indulgent is sometimes a good thing, especially when it comes to a breathtaking film like "Drowning by Numbers". The movie is one giant puzzle. There's a girl who jumps rope while counting out the names of the stars by number. Try to see if you can spot all the numbers 1-100 hidden throughout the film. The plot concerns three women, a mother and two daughters. All 3 women are named Cissy. Each woman named Cissy drowns their deadbeat husbands for being unsatisfactory lovers. Magit is the local coroner, and he agrees to keep the murders a secret. He makes a deal to claim each death an accidental drowning, if each Cissy gives him sexual favors in return. So 3 generations of women all named Cissy decide to lead on Magit the coroner without promise. Poor Guy! The coroner's son Smut, is obsessed with death. He plays strange number games and marks roadkill with different colored paint. He also likes to set of fireworks after a death. Not to mention, Smut is also obsessed with circumcision. He's never been circumcised and feels the need to take matters in his own hands, so to speak. Wow, the crazy things men will do for women. Also look for Nip/Tuck actress Joely Richardson as the youngest Cissy. "Drowning by Numbers" is extremely bizarre, and shows that life is a game made up of numbers. It's a brilliant surreal mind-phuk puzzle that you have to watch at least twice to comprehend. Peter Greenaway is very original, with satirical wit and a dark comic edge.

I first saw this film many years ago when it was first released, after having seen all greenaway's BFI funded experimental films and the Draughtman's Contract et al. Some of the reviews here seem to compare this film with greenaway's later films, right up to the Pillow Book. I don't see this as relevant, a film maker will obviously evolve over a period of 20 years. This film was at the time, and still is, a thoughtful, beautifully photographed masterpiece. The cast are superb, the script is crisp, and although it generally is regarded as greenaway's most "user friendly" film, this is no bad thing. In short, a film to be enjoyed time after time. PLEASE WILL SOMEONE ARRANGE A DVD RELEASE SOON !!!!!!!!!!