Nightwatching

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Fans of Peter Greenaway's films will know what to expect of Nightwatching, a biopic of Rembrandt but mostly concentrating on the time spent in and around his painting of The Nightwatch - luscious visuals, a blatant disregard for accepted film conventions and a sometimes-impenetrable plot. Those not of an arthouse persuasion, however, will understandably hold this film up as an example as to why they fear to veer from the mainstream.

In 1642 Rembrandt (Freeman) is a celebrated painter - despite his young age of twenty-five, his opinion (or rather his deconstruction) on classic paintings his highly revered. His pregnant wife Saskia (Birthistle) convinces Rembrandt to accept the chance to portray the Amsterdam Musketeer Militia in a group portrait. When he learns of the scandalous nature of the militia, Rembrandt siezes the opportunity to place encoded and thinly disguised attacks on the group, portraying them as rapists, murderers and thieves. Disgraced, the militia go about destroying the painter's life...

Working for Peter Greenaway must be a cinematographer's dream: together with the lighting department, the cinematographer is called upon to play with light, sometimes recreating the exact same light Rembrandt used in his paintings. The attention to detail is impressive. When Greenaway takes the viewer behind the scenes into the organised chaos of Rembrandt's famous works, Nightwatching becomes (can you say this about a Greenaway film?) fun. Rembrandt's haphazard arranging of his rowdy actors into the right positions is far removed from what you'd expect when you see the finished product, but Greenaway ever so slowly zooms out until we finally get to recognise what painting it is. "We can give this painting sound," Rembrandt announces. Greenaway has.

Freeman's Rembrandt isn't a million miles away from Tom Hulce's Mozart; in Amadeus Hulce's performance deliberately stuck out like a sore thumb but this Rembrandt blends into the other characters - everyone here speaks in contemporary English and with a liberal use of bad language. Freeman's Rembrandt is always 'on': he's always the entertainer, regaling those willing to listen with witticism and damning character defamations... And there are always those willing to listen. With a lot to do (he's in every scene and has tons of dialogue to get through), Freeman is entertaining in his first serious role since The Office, showing that he can do more than be a throwaway comic actor. When Greenaway asks him to get serious, Freeman meets the challenge.

Where Nightwatching falls down is its plodding pace and Greenaway's insistence of giving his direction a theatrical style. His sporadic penchant for breaking the fourth wall may be informative when it comes to characterisation but it's also jarring and breaks the spell Greenaway works so hard to cast.