Against the backdrop of the autumnal Suffolk seaside, three generations of women, each named Cissie Colpitts, murder their unsatisfactory husbands by drowning them in a bathtub, in the sea, and in a swimming pool, respectively. In return for promised sexual favors, which the women ultimately withhold, the local coroner, Henry Madgett (Hill), agrees to certify the deaths as accidental, although a small but steadily-growing crowd of witnesses and relatives put pressure on him to tell the truth. His adolescent son, Smut, who is obsessed with death and collects animal and insect corpses, also thinks his father should come clean. True to Madgett's—and the film's—obsession with games (all the numbers between 1 and 100 appear during the course of the film, but not in order!), he sets up a tug-of-war across a river to decide the issue, where he and Smut join the Cissies against their detractors. Greenaway is an often-infuriating, one-of-a-kind filmmaker who continually tests the patience of his audience. Many feel it not worth the effort to figure out his obscure games, let alone their meaning, without some kinky sex or gore to leaven the proceedings. Drowning by Numbers serves up plenty of this: a circumcision by scissors, a continual revulsion for food and flesh, and some near-sickening scenes of decay and insects. Still, as if ignoring the filmmaker's cryptic tendencies, the performances are wry and often blackly witty, and each frame is packed with detail and beauty. Here is an amoral tale told morally, with a strong feminist overtone—almost all of the male characters die via the unbeatable Cissies' conspiracy—reflecting, as Greenaway himself has stated, that "the good do not get rewarded, and the wicked are rarely punished, and the innocent are always abused." 16mm
1988, color, 1 hour 58 minutes, UK