I first saw this film some time after Greenaway's biggest successes and found it a rather painful experience. Indeed I began to suffer the beginnings of a stomach complaint that seemed to mirror that of the architect here. The (imagined?) disturbance disappeared but I was always loathe to revisit the piece. Finally gathering up the confidence to face my demons I find them rather unconvincing, this time around. Brian Dennehy seems an odd choice in the lead and I find him irritating from the start. Chloe Webb is an even stranger choice with a voice and diction that might suggest English were not her first language, though it is. Perhaps it was a hangover from playing a punk in the previous year's Sid and Nancy. The film always looks great but then surely no surprise as this is the man who shot Last Year at Marienbad although I am made to wonder this might have looked even better in black and white like that classic. This would have played better with the various buildings, drawings and architectural features of Rome. Such is the power of the visuals, of course and the seeming shortfalls in the central performances as to cause one to notice more the over theatrical movements of groups of people on camera and the stilted delivery of rather strained dialogue. The film opens brilliantly with the architect and his wife happily and joyfully making love as their train enters Italy. Unfortunately there is never such a moment again, for the emphasis is more on inanimate objects and their aesthetic qualities. Even the architect's stomach complaints seem not to make him more human for as he begins to compare himself obsessively to his beloved Boullee, his reason for coming to Rome, we seem to see a man being eaten up from inside. Whether this is caused by jealousy of the ancient architect, the young Italian who seems to have more than his eyes on his wife or simply his young wife who is clearly no longer content to simply sit at his feet, is unclear. For all that it is a compelling watch, firstly because it is so well shot and secondly because even though we have no liking for the main characters, interest in the pending exhibition or even the fate of the architect, we are drawn, as in some Shakespeare play, into the doom laden pit of obsession and greed, if for no other reason than to gloat.