✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Finland, Netherlands · 2008
1h 26m
Director Peter Greenaway
Starring Peter Greenaway, Martin Freeman, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May
Genre Documentary, Mystery
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
J'accuse is an 'essay-istic' documentary in which Greenaway's fierce criticism of today's visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the background, the context, the conspiracy, the murder and the motives of all its 34 painted characters who have conspired to kill for their combined self-advantage.
Greenaway is first and foremost a deft storyteller and filmmaker -- and a cheeky art historian. An appreciation of art isn't necessary to enjoy Rembrandt's J'Accuse, and Greenaway goes to great lengths to draw the artistically illiterate into the story.
Part alt–art-history lesson and part pilot for CSI: The Louvre, Peter Greenaway’s deconstruction of Rembrandt’s 1642 painting The Night Watch contends that the work is--after the Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s The Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel--the fourth best-known artwork in the world.
The filmmaker uncovers a foul, lurid, corrupt, and perversely compelling conspiracy--which is to say, he successfully turns The Night Watch into a Peter Greenaway film.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Generally absorbing if sometimes fog-inducing.
One ring to rule them all
In space no one can hear you scream.
The rigid principles of a devout Catholic man are challenged during one night with a divorced woman.
Two British soldiers race to deliver a message that will stop over 1,000 men from walking into a German ambush.
The last seven days of Stefano Cucchi