I don't like the term self-indulgent, it's not a very useful criticism. But if any movie can be called self-indulgent, this is the one. Greenaway is crawling really far up his own ass. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't enjoy it, I'm just pretty sure no one can enjoy it as much as Greenaway can. What I enjoyed most of all were the striking, original filmmaking techniques. As for the content, it's a mixed bag. Certain moments are terrific, but the film as a whole is hard to concentrate on.

Still loving this, though I don't know why, and I don't pretend to know what's going on most of the time. The acting is better (or at least not as distractingly bad), and the music is also improving as it goes along (though there's still too much oboe, which always makes me think "bad TV-movie"), but those two things don't affect the majesty of the production and the mythology, which I'm finally seeing as something you could really get swallowed up in. Onward!