I'm really amazed with the work Peter Greenaway did in this movie. I have seen most of his films and this one is now my favourite. It's impressive the way the made every frame a moving Rembrandt's painting. This is pure art cinema. The story is told in a creative way, you can understand the clever mind of Rembrandt, follow his steps in his life focused on his most famous painting "The Night Watch", it could be a "slow" movie but the way "Rembrandt" tells the story makes it smooth; dramatic, funny, and smart. I could frame this movie on a museum. The "Holland" world is perfectly shown, the costume design is superb; every single detail in the movie takes you to 1642. To appreciate this movie you must know who Peter Greenaway is and understand why "cinema" is the 7th art.

This film, which I saw yesterday at a single, sparsely attended 4:00 p.m. show, part of an AFI European film festival, may thrill Greenaway fans, but a broad cross-section of movie lovers will probably find it mannered and dull. Shot Rembrandt-style, it apparently aspires to be an homage to art, to the 17th century artist, and to his early-modern eye for humanity -- the cinematographer keeps coming back to, and lingering over, eye shots -- combined with a detective story, a psychodrama, a domestic drama, a costume drama, a self-conscious allusion to the director's earlier dramas, and a brawling, lusty slice of Low Country life in the era when kings waged war with parliaments, city walls were just starting to come down, and commerce was beginning to muscle aside the gun as the engine of empires.

The film badly needs editing. Everything that happens when a camera is turned on is not necessarily art or even interesting. The 144 minutes I saw would have benefited had they been shrunk by nearly an hour. First kill all of the improvised scenes. Then kill all of the gratuitous sex scenes and needless expletives. Then kill all of the scenes in which an actor talks directly to the audience. Then kill all of the precious, mannered references to other Greenaway films -- statues played by semi-nude actors, sides of beef hung out to dry, etc. etc. Tighten up the detective story. Lighten up the art analysis. Minimize the posing scenes. Voila. You'd be at 90 minutes without any problem.

Not for the uncommitted or the faint of heart.

Although this is a dull movie overall and very slow paced, I have watched it through a couple of times and i did enjoy it. Not sure what message peter Greenway is trying to convey (I haven't seen his previous films) and I am not knowledgeable of the Rembrandt paintings. I suspect Greenway recognized a story in this one and went for it. There is nudity and sex acts performed but none more so than Dorian Gray. All works of art even by Shakespeare in literature and as with the Nighwatch, what this film tells us in 16th century life, are commissions; was Rembrandt really painting with any true freedom? The film is sponsored by the Uk Film council, lots of fine British actors appearing such as Martin Freeman, but I didn't get the connection with Poland and the involvement of the Polish film Insitute. the 'murder' (or military accident) ? was integral to the story of the film and Rembrandt purposefully includes 'him' in the painting to the exclusion of others who had supposedly commissioned the painting in the first instant. the film doesn't reach any great heights and is definitely one to watch on DVD, not at the cinema and perhaps in stages when you are in the 'mood' for it. Might pay special attention to check the painting when I am next in Amsterdam.