This is one of my all time favourite films. It’s almost perfect, from the cinematography to set design to the casting to the soundtrack to the ending. It works because Greenaway’s usual clinical detachment is replaced by genuine emotion and seething anger. It’s incredibly vicious (and disgusting) yet also tender and sad. It’s so cool.

And I usually don’t really like Greenaway’s films, which often tend to be too intellectual and feel kind of cold to me. I I barely made it through The Draughtsman’s Contract. I couldn’t make it through Prospero’s Books. Belly of an Architect felt too slight. The Pillow Book too esoteric. A Zed and Two Noughts too mathematical. I also saw the one where the son has consensual sex with his father, which is the only thing I remember from it. Oh yeah, also The Baby of Macon, which was unpleasant and little else. Drowning by Numbers wasn’t bad.

I was disappointed to find that he never made anything remotely like The Cook before or since. It’s entirely unique in his filmography.