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Storyline
Oliver Deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving the car being driven by Alba Bewick colliding with a very large rare bird. His twin brother Oswald is researching how carcasses decay at the local zoo. Alba survives the accident although she loses one leg, and her sinister physician eventually removes the other 'because it looked so sad all alone'. Oswald and Oliver become involved in a menage a trois with Alba, and uncover very dubious trafficking in zoo property. But ultimately their only goal is to try and understand their mortal condition. Written by
Dan Ellis
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Did You Know?
Trivia
Early in the movie, we are shown a front-page newspaper article about the deaths of the protagonists' wives. This front page also contains sidebar articles detailing events from two of director
Peter Greenaway's subsequent films,
The Belly of an Architect (the article headlined "Architect Dies") and
Drowning by Numbers (the article headlined "A Hot Bath Heart Attack").
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Quotes
Alba Bewick:
In the land of the legless the one-legged woman is queen.
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Soundtracks
"An Elephant Never Forgets"
Performed by
The BBC Dance Orchestra
Directed by
Henry Hall
Courtesy of EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING LTD and EMI RECORDS LTD
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Greenaway at his finest, pretentious to some viewers, his film on grief and decay stayed with me for many weeks and the final flash photography with snails was a triumph.
Nyman created some wonderful pieces though neither artist quite surpasses their work on The Draughtmans contract in my humble opinion (I've yet to see The Falls), though still visually stunning this remains a sometimes darkly comic but ultimately unsettling piece - highly recommended.
I am usually eager to see Greenaway films again and again and this is no exception, but it is "talking to me" from it's first viewing 6 months hence. When my mind is finally starved of this feast and I am ready for a new perspective on it I will sit down and indulge in it again.