Nightwatching (18)

Dir. Peter Greenaway, Netherlands/Canada/ UK/ France/ Poland, 2007, 141 mins,

Cast:  Martin Freeman, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May

Review by Carol Allen

Greenaway's films always look like works of art and this one is no exception.   Its subject matter is the seventeenth century Dutch painter Rembrandt and his painting of the work that is regarded as his masterpiece, "The Night Watch".   The men in the picture are a group of local dignitaries, merchants playing at soldiers in the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia and what was revolutionary about the work is that, unlike the usual run of such paintings at the time, where the subjects stand in a formal group staring out of the frame, Rembrandt, as we're told in the film, directed his subjects like actors, giving them animation and action.  

"The Night Watch" however also ruined Rembrandt's career, turning him from a wealthy celebrity into a pauper and Greenaway's premise is that the painter uncovered a conspiracy of murder amongst these socially powerful Amsterdam  merchants, which upset them more than somewhat, as the painting is full of clues about the murder and who did it.   Greenaway also suggests other nefarious goings on, in that one of the merchants, an apparently worthy and charitable citizen who runs an orphanage, has turned that orphanage into a child brothel.  

It's an intriguing premise but one which in the telling is frankly difficult to get a grasp on.   Greenaway's story telling is annoyingly oblique, with much of the important action taking place off screen and being talked about rather obscurely by the characters.   It is, to put it mildly, distinctly tricky to work out what's going on.   Until the end that is, when there are some Greenaway trademark explicit sex scenes between Rembrandt and his servant girl mistress Geertje (May).   There are though  good performances.   Freeman sporting longish curls and a cute little beard holds it all together as the likably lusty, expletive spouting artist and Birthistle is affecting as his sickly but feisty wife Saskia, while Natalie Press is waif like as the unfortunate orphan Marieke, whose twin sister is abused and disfigured by the orphanage owner and who blows the whistle on it all to Rembrandt.  

The main characteristic of this film though is its sheer visual beauty with every frame looking like a Rembrandt painting come to life in its colours and lighting.   And it has a most attention getting opening, when we meet Rembrandt in the throes of a nightmare, in which he is stripped and beaten by his enemies and turfed out of his bed, a bizarre four poster on wheels, which appears to be stranded in the middle of his studio.   Enigmatic, intriguing and more than a touch baffling, rather like the film itself.