text: Greenaway's films pose as clever, erudite and innovative. Yet his style and grammar originate and remind viewers of films made in the World War 1 era of film-making: the frame composition, use of mid-shot, the static camera. It may be well to rub against mainstream movies with this style but it is not new. Perhaps like that other "innovator", TS Eliot, he draws more from the past than in looking forward as an authentic innovator would or could.<br /><br />Yet Greenaway's biggest failing is that he cannot write. His dialog and even plot structure is mechanical and logical but without the vitality of another dramatic logician, Brecht. Where this weakness is most apparent is in his humor, which is poised and logical, so the joke is dead before it's delivered. The result is tedium: if it's not funny, it has failed: ask a stand-up comedian to justify their act if the audience doesn't respond. Perhaps the well-read director could learn something from Freud on humor.<br /><br />Finally, like Woody Allen, Greenaway has manipulated his actors over the years to work like clones. They speak the lines with a bored, smug air like narcissistic adolescents.<br /><br />This film, despite its design and lighting, is meretricious.