Peter Greenaway is a British experimental filmmaker whose feature film, The Draughtsman's Contract, has recently been released. His short films, Greenaway says, like The Draughtsman's Contract, show “an ironic stance over plot, events, characterization and circumstance.” He collaborates with composer Michael Nyman in both short films and feature.
A Walk Through H
Many of Greenaway's films feature his imaginary alter ego, an ornithologist named by Tulse Luper. “He's about 65, a know-it-all, a Buckminster Fuller, a McLuhan, a John Cage, a pain.” Greenaway describes A Walk Through H as “an incisive documentary about the transmigration of the soul, told through maps. Maps are so fascinating because of the conceit that you can tell where you have been, where you are, where you are going--three tenses in one.” Tulse Luper here takes a mythical journey through the country of H, accompanied by the music of Michael Nyman. Sight & Sound's Nigel Andrews writes, “The film is an island of fantasy lapped on all sides by absurdity. Like all the best surrealist art, it combines the pedantically methodical with the devoutly inconsequential....”