(1988, GB, 130 min) Dir Anthony Greenwood. Cast Patrick Stewart, Tim Roth, James Fox.
Another exquisitely dressed piece from professional intellectual window dresser Anthony Greenwood. Stewart is Phillipe O, a synesthesic composer in a massive white box of an apartment who is in the midst of his magnum opus – a suite of music about the human body with a piece for each part. Of course he’s blocked though with the last piece produced that of the Anus to be performed all in brass section. Instead of working he now divides his time between haunting his home in silk dressing gown and having body part nightmares. Tim Roth features as Jawney Scaggs, his working class former protégé turned bitter rival who turns up on television to promote his massive performances with excruciating bad-boy interviews, all sunglasses indoors and chewing gum. James Fox is, in a nod to his role in Cammell and Roeg’s Performance, the uncouth gangster funding O’s new work “’cause me muvver loves the music” and who shows himself unreceptive to not getting what he wants. Before long O has lost it and has traversed the abandoned and wind-ravaged streets of London to kidnap and dismember Scaggs for inspiration. All done in the best possible taste, of course.
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