The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)

The film is a tantalizing puzzle wrapped in eroticism and presented with utmost elegance. Greenaway gives viewers clues to a complex story of plots and murder but leaves them to draw their own conclusions rather than spelling everything out.

The film is cinema's first Restoration comedy-mystery, an enigmatic tale of murder set in 1694 with loose morals and mannered behavior. Greenaway creates a detailed, elegant, and mindbendingly rich picture of the period through words as weapons and lush landscapes.

Greenaway’s arch tale of sexual and political manipulation has not lost its power to bewilder and compel after 40 years. The critic praises its singular brilliance, bizarre vehemence and intensity, and refusal to dumb anything down.

The critic celebrates the film as a fresh and funny blueprint for modern period pieces thanks to its acerbic script and anachronistic flourishes. They single out the witty, barbed dialogue and the painterly visual style blended with new-wave influences.

The critic presents the film as enjoyable both as a country-house murder mystery with Restoration trappings and for its playfully significant formal structure. A well-constructed plot is singled out as a strength.

The film is a fledgling attempt at Greenaway's later perfected style, told through obsessive long-take tableaus that feel like diving into a painting. There is a story and mystery here that prevents the director from indulging in his sometimes alienating proclivities, resolved with merciless efficiency.

Contract is a sordid and gorgeous bridge between Greenaway's experimental films and his narrative period, with elaborate costumes and beautiful landscapes contrasting the characters' blunt brutality. It often feels like an inexact bridge, too mannered to take in as a straightforward narrative but rewarding as an elaborately patterned puzzle box.

The film seems a comedy of manners but reveals underlying viciousness among the rich that foreshadows upheavals. It is well-lensed with fine costumes, lovely surroundings, and a limpid narration that switches from observation of the landed class to a foreboding tale of murder.

The film is a formalist tease and fantasia of conceits about perspective, the artist, his art, and the world, with a suggestion of Antonioni’s Blow-Up in its clues and murder plot. The sudden burst of Jacobean violence disrupts the Restoration-comedy artifice, and the superior tone may bore some viewers.

The critic calls the film a sublime piece of filmmaking, elegant and visually exquisite with opulent costumes, grandeur, and landscaped beauty. They praise its deft composition like paintings, witty comedy that makes it accessible, and deeper layers of social critique beneath the surface mystery.