its all theater.

peter greenaway has made films i love. rembrandt is a favorite painter of mine. unfortunately the two together is not a marriage fit to enjoyment.

pompous comes to mind. outrageous. over the top and beyond. greenaway seems obsessively compelled to tell the story behind rembrandt's "the militia company of captain frans banning coqc" aka the "night watch". he delves deeply into conspiracy theories and back stories; plots and mysteries. so much so that for most of the film the average viewer....well let me just say the average viewer would walk away from this....it takes a serious rembrandt and/or cinema fan to watch this...that 'serious' viewer is still going to be troubled to follow whats going on here. and worse, they'll be troubled to care about this overly theatrical style that permeates the film...i'm assuming this is a set up for the very last scenes.

i've watched several documentaries on rembrandt and on this one painting recently. those were interesting and insightful. greenaway's film does everything it can to prove to you that he knows the answers. but while based on fact the theories he brings forward are questionable at times. in the end this is a "based on" story not a documentary. so why the need to bludgeon the audience with "i know more than you do" and "its so complicated, you wouldn't understand" preposterous pomp.

its beautiful, as greenaway does well. but in the end i simply had a very difficult time sitting through it and didn't at all enjoy it.

strictly for fans of greenaway, and not his best anyways. watch 'rembrandt' with charles laughton from 1936 instead. same story but more watchable.

(3/10)

3/10