Stourley Kracklite is an architect from Chicago who is curating an exhibition in Rome of his hero, the eighteenth-century French neo-classicist designer Étienne-Louis Boulée. However, the project is not going well, his wife has eyes for a younger Italian man, and there seems to be a terminal ache in his guts …

I'm not a big fan of the work of the acclaimed art-school darling Greenaway, but this film is brilliant. I think this is because there are three elements which separate it from the normal World Cinema stylings. The first, and most important, is the brilliant casting of Dennehy as Kracklite. Not only is he physically perfect - a big bear of a man but also a formidable intellect - but the radical departure from his normal US cop movie persona to a European art house film brings out a rich, thoughtful performance. Kracklite is a man whose world is crumbling about him, reincarnates others in himself, is obsessed with his body and writes postcards to a dead man, but his passionate defence of the exhibition and of the purity of Boulée's work is at the core of the drama. Cult fans should also note the sultry presence of Casini, the doomed friend from Dario Argento's Suspiria. Secondly, there is terrific music by the Belgian composer Wim Mertens, combining extraordinarily beautiful woodwind and piano melodies - the title piece, Birds For The Mind, is a hauntingly perfect accompaniment to many of the exquisite images in the film. Finally, the film is simply crammed full of jaw-droppingly gorgeous shots of Rome - the title shot of the twin churches in the Piazza Del Popolo, a sumptuous opening banquet outside the Pantheon (the oldest building in Rome), the sequences at the Monumento Nazionale A Vittorio Emanuele II (the "typewriter"), the grey dawn when Kracklite visits Piazza San Pietro, a bit at the Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi in the Piazza Navona, many others. It was shot by Sacha Vierny, and contains many smart visual cues (green figs and photocopier light for envy, Flavia's photo montages, Newton blowing away after Kracklite's final encounter with gravity, the spinning gyroscope), as well as more aesthetically pleasing symmetrical shots than perhaps even Stanley Kubrick's work. Vierny was one of France's most gifted cameramen (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Belle De Jour) whose career was given a second wind by his association with Greenaway, the two creating many remarkable images together. Even if you don't like arty flicks, turn down the sound on this one and just drink in the beauty and scope of the visuals. Movies are pictures. This is Greenaway's best film by a long chalk, although his subsequent two - Drowning By Numbers and The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover - are also both worth catching.

An American architect (Dennehy) comes to Rome with his wife to create an exhibition he's been working on for 10years. He is troubled though by a terrible pain in his stomach.

Like all Greenaway's projects, this is decidedly off kilter - though not as much as usual - with his usual structured picture framing and colour (red and green) and fabulous use of music. The wonderful soundtrack here is not by Nyman, but is very similar.

Dennehy is perfect in the lead role, but Chloe Webb as his wife puts in a rather strange stilted performance as his wife.

This starts slow but improves as it goes along as Dennehy's story unfolds. Not for everyone, but lovers of the great director will enjoy this, even if it is more orthodox than usual.

Dreamlike, beautifully shot by great Sasha Vernie and equally disturbing (as all Greenaway's movies are), "The Belly of an Architect" (1987) tells the story of an American architect, Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy) who came to Rome to work on the exhibition dedicated to the French architect of the 18th century, Etienne-Louis Boullee (1728 - 1799). Stourley brings with him his much younger wife Louisa with whom is passionately in love. Everything looks good for him – he's got a project of his dreams to work on, his wife is with him, and his Italian colleagues seem to be supportive and exited about the exhibit as much as he is. Soon, though, the things begin to change and look rather grim – Stourley's pregnant wife enters the affair with a younger man, the work does not move as quickly as it was planned and on the top of all, Stourley gets sick and perhaps more seriously than he thinks.

When I watch Peter Greenaway's films, I know they will be a feast for brain, eyes, and ears – his films consist of frames so perfectly composed that you want to capture every moment of them and exclaim like Goethe's Faust did, "Stay a while! You are so lovely!". The music in his films matches the visual beauty perfectly, and his outlook at the familiar world is always original and arresting even if it lacks warmth and sentimentality. "The Belly of an Architect" is all that: it is filled with symbolism and references to history, Art, and anatomy. It is also a social satire on difference between cultures but it is a compelling and moving story of one man's descending to chaos, hopelessness, despair, and eventually death. This is the first Greenaway's movie since "The cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" that made me feel compassion for its protagonist. I believe it is due to the incredible performance by Brian Dennehy - quite unusual name for a Greenaway's film but was he great as the architect of the title. Dennehy creates a character that is not likable as the film begins but heartbreaking and tragic by the end.

8/10