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Poster for The Belly of an Architect

The Belly of an Architect

1987 · 118 min

A cold, cerebral plunge into obsession and decay, where architectural precision and bodily obsession collide in a slow, unsettling spiral.

Directed by
Peter Greenaway
Genres
Drama
Starring
Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, Lambert Wilson
Tagline
Art is the food for madness.
Overview
Stourley Kracklite, a driven, detail-obsessed architect, travels from America to Rome with his much younger wife, Louisa, to oversee an architectural homage to a personal hero, 18th-century master builder Etienne-Louis Boullée. En route by train, Stourley and Louisa conceive a much-wanted child — but Stourley's obsession with his wife's expanding belly, her perceived infidelity, and his own recurrent bouts of abdominal pain reach epic and dangerous proportions.

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Stream in the UK
  • BFI Player
More options Data from JustWatch
Directed by
Peter Greenaway
Genres
Drama
Starring
Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, Lambert Wilson
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • cynicalstrength 2 of 3
  • darkstrength 2 of 3
  • absurdstrength 2 of 3
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
Pacing
measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • obsession
  • betrayal
  • death
  • art
  • madness
Places
  • big city
Era
contemporary
Audience
adult
Form
  • nonlinear
Content intensity
  • Gore mild
  • Language mild
  • Violence mild
  • Sex strong
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action2
Horror3
Humour4
Realism7
Romance3
Tension6
Darkness7
Complexity8
Emotional weight7

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Where to watch in the UK

Stream
  • BFI Player

Streaming data from JustWatch.All options on TMDB

Details

Genres
drama
Directed by
Peter Greenaway
Written by
Peter Greenaway
Starring
Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb, Lambert Wilson, Sergio Fantoni, Stefania Casini, Vanni Corbellini, Alfredo Varelli, Geoffrey Copleston
Music
Wim Mertens
Cinematography
Sacha Vierny
Runtime
118 min
Country
Italy, United Kingdom
Languages
Italian, English

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