- Actors: Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Bernard Hill, Bryan Pringle, Joely Richardson
- Directors: Peter Greenaway
- Producers: Drowning By Numbers
- Format: Import, PAL
- Subtitles: Swedish, Danish, Finnish
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 15
- Run Time: 119.00 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B001NP02WC
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 60,626 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Sweden released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), Danish ( Subtitles ), Finnish ( Subtitles ), Norwegian ( Subtitles ), Swedish ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Peter Greenaway wrote and directed this typically surreal and iconoclastic black comedy. Three generations of women who share the same name -- 63-year-old Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright), her daughter Cissie Colpitts II (Juliet Stevenson), and granddaughter Cissie Colpitts III (Joely Richardson) -- have all discovered the same way of dealing with their marital problems. The senior Cissie has drowned her husband Jake (Bryan Pringle) in the bathtub, her daughter sent her spouse Hardy (Trevor Cooper) to a watery grave in the ocean, and the youngest Cissie sent her husband Bellamy (David Morrissey) down in a swimming pool. Needless to say, local coroner Henry Madgett (Barnard Hill) has some questions about this sudden rash of drownings among the Colpitts husbands, and again all three women respond in the same way: they promise to sleep with Henry in exchange for recording the deaths as accidental (though none of the Cissies make good on this promise). When the local gossip mill begins working overtime about this sudden rash of water-related deaths, Henry's teenage son Smut (Jason Edwards) comes to the aid of the Cissies and organizes a tug-of-war, with he and the Colpitts women on one side and the doubting townspeople on the other (and, of course, a river in the middle). Along the way, Greenaway often stops to contemplate his obsessions with literature, astronomy, and numbers. Drowning by Numbers was released in Europe in 1988, but didn't find its way to American screens until 1991, following the success of Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, ...Drowning By Numbers
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, ...Drowning By Numbers
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
You either love Peter Greenaway's films or hate them. They take much more effort than the usual Hollywood fare, and many folk can't stand films they can't grasp instantly.
Drowning by Numbers is a mixture of metaphor, allegory and narrative shot with immense style in elaborately constructed and richly-coloured sets. The biggest plot thread is the murder of their partners by three generations of women. This isn't crass US TV real-life drama. This is funny, startling and utterly absorbing cinema.
Woven into this is an array of cryptic sub-plots with some unsettling themes and a couple of horrifying denouments.
If you like your plots on a plate, you won't like this film. But if you like to sit back, absorb, and wait for the realisations to come to you slowly (maybe weeks later), this is a very satisfying and absorbing film indeed.
The cinematography, the ambience, the careful pace and direction - not to mention the soundtrack - are really rather extraordinary.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
Greenaway's films are always watchable for the cinematography, but in this one you can actually follow the story too. The plot is fairly simple but is padded out with descriptions of peculiar games that Madgett, the Suffolk coroner, and his strange son Smut invent to pass the time. Smut also celebrates any violent death (whether roadkill or drowned husbands) by painting a number at the scene and letting off fireworks. Yellow paint for Tuesdays, red paint for Saturdays (Tuesday is winning, being the best day for violent deaths). You can also try to count the ascending numbers from 1-100 that are placed in each scene. I only saw about half of them - some are well hidden.
There isn't a DVD version of the film available in the UK at the moment, but the Australian DVD (with UK FilmFour logo!) is region 0, so will play on any DVD player, and is probably the best bet for picture quality.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
Very few films have the vision and originality of Drowning by Numbers. Apart from being beautifully filmed and containing a fantastic collection of old English childrens' games, this film is erotic, heartbreaking and funny. Trevor Cooper's outstanding performance is remarkable for its portrayal of a man building his own downfall. Juliet Stevenson is excellent as are all the acast. I defy anyone to predict what happens from scene to scene. This is film making for thinking people. I saw it first on TV by accident and had to get the video. A DVD release would be fantastic.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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A darkly surreal comedy about three women, three murders and a coroner forms the basis of one of director, Peter Greenaway's, most satisfying films to date. Read more
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Numbers
Only in english, the book from Peter Greenaway is very usefull to understand in deep this flm.
Published on 21 April 2010 by M. Jean Marc Sies
GWM
Very dark picture, had to adjust the brightness. Not as clever or as good as I remember.
Published on 1 April 2010 by G. W. Maynard
I just wish it would come out on DVD!
Now, this is really worth a proper DVD release - if only they would do it. It is the best film of my life (not over yet, but it would be hard to beat it). Read more
Published on 5 Sep 2003 by Michael Channon
Never mind the film, listen to the music!
Michael Nyman's reworking of Mozart's Symphonie Concertante is simply brilliant. Forget the video, by the CD of the music instead!
Published on 13 Sep 2000
Greenaway at his best ...
Peter Greenaway's art cinema is often criticised - the undergraduate's favourite he is seen as pretentious and faux-sophisticated. Read more
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