The Falls is an exhaustingly long Peter Greenaway film, and apparently the first of his that can be called a feature film. In typical idiosyncratic Greenaway fashion, his "feature debut" is by no means traditional, as this is more or less 92 brief stories strung together into one film that runs for a little over three hours. Each of the 92 stories focuses on a different survivor of some strange event that killed much of the world's population and had bizarre effects on most people who survived. Despite how grim it might sound, just about everything's played for laughs, and much of the humor is absurd.

There's something weird about it because even with the repetition and slower/kind of boring moments, I never lost interest entirely. This is one film where I respect the brazen approach and admire how different it is more than I can say I really enjoyed it, but I wasn't bored too often and did enjoy parts of it for sure. It's a unique take on the post-apocalypse genre, if it can be categorized as a sci-fi film that deals with the after-effects of some kind of apocalypse. It's all done in a realistic, mockumentary style, too. Perhaps it's a little bit like the final third of Threads from 1984, but much funnier and not so soul-crushing.

I think this is my second favorite film of Greenaway's, after the immortal The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover. Actually, it would be third, after a short film of his called Making A Splash that's literally just people swimming (trust me, the Michael Nyman music makes that one amazing- it's on YouTube). Exploring about half a dozen films of his over the last week or so has proven most rewarding, and I think he's an endlessly fascinating (and talented) filmmaker. Also happy I've done my homework before tackling an article about the man's work sometime in the next couple of days. That article is going to be lucky to get more than a couple thousand views, but oh well - it's good to be thorough and do your homework when it comes to writing about entertainment (or films that you'd probably have watched at some point anyway), no matter what.

Exhausting and brilliant, Greenaway's first feature may come as a surprise to those familiar with his more famous concoctions, such as THE DRAUGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT or DROWNING BY NUMBERS. Instead of sumptuous finery, set-design and colour, or studied, enigmatic performances, we have a, very local, documentary. A documentary which, like all others in the genre, seeks to examine realistically a particular problem in a particular area, through evidence, witness and analysis. A documentary whose 'real' elements are so preposterous that they develop not into an answer for truth, but full-blown mystery and fantasy, without ever moving beyond words and plausible images. What is very Greenaway is the numerology, the formalism, the very literary script, the arch jokes, the word-games, the nonsense-as-high-theory. Stunning, but you may not watch it again in a hurry.

I reckon that The Falls has to go down as the best thing that director Peter Greenaway has ever did. It marks the end of his early years when his work mainly took the format of short films. In a way The Falls takes this form too, in that it is essentially made up of a multitude of self-contained short films, albeit ones with an overall theme and connection. More specifically, it takes the format of a mockumentary, one that mimics the dry BBC style. Set in the near future, it centres on the fallout of an unexplained occurrence known as the Violent Unknown Event, in which a large number of people experience certain changes, including physical mutations and the ability to speak a variety of new hitherto unknown languages. The cause of this phenomenon remains oblique but it is suggested that it may be in some way related to ornithology. The film is made up of a selection of 92 mini biographies of victims taken from an official catalogue, detailing only individuals whose names begin with the letters F-A-L-L.

The first thing that is apparent about this one is that it is considerably more light-hearted that Greenaway's later feature films. It's full to the brim with absurd humour and the tone remains quite playful much of the time. It really has more in common with his earlier shorts that his later feature films. For one thing, it feels more like an underground movie with much less of a budget. The later films had the cinematography of Sacha Vierney to make them look visually immaculate, yet the more lo-fi approach here kind of feels somewhat more interesting for me. The format overall makes much better use of Greenaway's talents in that it allows for him to try many different things. Each mini-bio allows for a different approach and for a highly experimental film-maker such as Greenaway this lets him flex his avant-garde muscles quite freely. Of course, some parts are more interesting than others and there are some sections that are somewhat tedious. But pleasingly often he hits home with some genuinely fascinating left-field oddity and, in any case, if one part isn't grabbing your attention it will soon be followed by something else. There are many moments of visual invention of various kinds; Greenaway is able to dabble in differing types of avant-garde film-making. Helping matters considerably at times is the score from Michael Nyman, which is often very good; in particular the title theme 'Bird List' is especially wonderful.

Many of Greenaway's peculiarities can be seen here such as the creation of an almost fantasy world of sorts, replete with characters with names so bizarre as to have no connection with our world. Characters do things that go well beyond realism and the tone in general is one of absurdity throughout. There are also characters and events that both refer back to his earlier shorts and which will be used later in his subsequent features. It very much feels like this, along with many of his other films exist within their own little fantasy universe. And of course, his obsessions with list making, numerology, fine art and birds - amongst other things – are consistently adhered to. It is admittedly of an epic length but Greenaway himself has actively encouraged people to watch it in stages or in any order they wish. It's less cold and unpleasant than much of his more famous works and this makes for quite a refreshing change. For me, while it is challenging in many ways, it is the most interesting and enjoyable film he has ever directed and remains one of the best avant-garde films out there.