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The Belly of an Architect (1987) Reviews

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American architect Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) comes with his young wife Louisa (Chloe Webb) to Rome to supervise an exhibition devoted to Etienne-Louis Boullée, a French architect of the 18th century. Suffering from severe abdominal pains, Stourley doesn't pay much attention to his pregnant wife, and she finds consolation in the arms of suave Caspasian Speckler (Lambert Wilson). Built from rigidly symmetrical images, the film has quite an unusual subject: the belly -- both the sick one of the architect and the pregnant one of his wife, the rounded forms alluding to the spherical constructions designed by Boullée, the architect whose visionary projects seldom materialized. Beautifully shot on location in Rome, this ironic fable wittily examines the issues of artistic creativity. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Starring:: Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, (more)

Director(s):: Peter Greenaway

Theatrical MPAA Rating:: R

Format(s):: DVD
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(2 member reviews)

Member Reviews

	Tom C.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

Whether you come to this flick because you admire architecture, dig Peter Greenaway, or love Rome (all of which I do), The Belly of an ARchitect will leave a bitter taste - and not just because the architect in question is suffering from a pain in the gut that makes him spew up nasty bile every now and then. The script is a mess. What might have been an interesting conceit is tangled up in nonsense. All the Italians are corrupt, the architect's wife is a bit dim, the architect an arrogant American without the sense to ask for an audit when his precious exhibition is being ripped off. But he must be some kind of magician: he can make photo copies even when placing the original right side up on the glass ... Greenaway has managed to acquire amazing locations, and one wishes he had filled them with a compelling story; but pretty pictures don't make a movie, and this quasi-operatic tale doesn't wash. For all the talk of meat and blood, this one is as cold as cadaver.

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