Color, 1988, 118 mins. 42 secs.
Directed by Peter Greenaway
Starring Joan Plowright, Joely Richardson, Juliet Stevenson, Bernard Hill, David Morrissey
Severin Films (UHD & Blu-ray) (US R0 4K/HD), MediumRare (Blu-ray & DVD) (UK RB/R2 HD/PAL), King Records (Blu-ray & DVD) (Japan R0 HD/NTSC), Alliance (Finland, Sweden R2 PAL) / WS (1.66:1) (16:9), Film Four (Australia R0 PAL) / Partial WS (1.66:1), Culture (Japan R2 NTSC), Kaleidoscope (Russia R5 PAL)
tragedies, 
A Zed and Two Noughts and The Belly of an Architect, director Peter Greenaway returned to the sardonic countryside dark comedy of The Draughtsman's Contract for another tongue-in-cheek murder yarn, Drowning by Numbers. Easily his most playful film in every sense of the term, this tricky and often charming film boasts some of his wittiest dialogue and makes for an ideal introduction for newcomers compared to his more challenging works. 
and psychological. The film also features his most audacious and entertaining visual gimmick, outdoing the sequential drawings of Draughtsman or the color-coded rooms of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Here 
the numbers 1 to 100 are contained within the film, in order, hidden somewhere in the frame from the first scene to the last; thus, viewers can either focus on the plot or simply have fun playing numeric hide and seek. This William Castle-style device is also thematically appropriate, drawing the viewer into playing along with the characters and firmly announcing when the game is finally over. The trademark Greenaway nudity is still in abundance, but the sexual and violent content is extremely mild (even borderline mainstream) compared to his subsequent work. Sonically this may be his richest film as well thanks to Michael Nyman's astonishing score, partially derived from Mozart and filled with moments of musical brilliance. A wonderful treasure of a film well worth exploring. 
(most exteriors) and hard matted at 1.66:1 (interiors), so the DVD presents more image than prior options. The film contains a Dolby Stereo tag on the end credits, and while 
the U.S laser had muddy sound with often indecipherable dialogue, it was essentially mono; the two DVD editions that followed were the same, while the Australian one offers a slightly more active mix. Above all, the Australian DVD is probably the only time you'll ever see a chapter stop entitled, "Do All Fat Men Have Little Penises?" The DVD also promises a theatrical trailer, which would be fine except it's really promotional trailers for Raining Stones and Bhaji on the Beach. The full frame Russian DVD offers a comparable video and audio presentation. As far as DVDs go, the Japanese reissue from King was the one to beat. Trumpeting a newly remastered anamorphic transfer, it's a huge step up in clarity (you can finally make out the nocturnal details during the opening credits), with the most available image information on all four sides during interior scenes. Colors are slightly more muted and naturalistic, but this looks closer to the theatrical prints. Best of all, the stereo mix was finally present in all its glory. This was also the first release to feature the actual theatrical trailer; it's the one prepared for the initial UK showings, and like most of Greenaway's trailers, it's misleadingly slow and subdued. 
beautiful 
Nyman music coming off especially well. It's bare bones though and would later be eclipsed, but more on that in a moment.
4K, Greenaway is it. This release finally gets it right with a spectacular a/v presentation, improving across the board with a vivid and painterly color scheme, perfect black levels, and a terrific DTS-HD MA 2.0 English track (with optional English SDH subtitles) that decodes very impressively in surround as well. The UHD is a particular beauty, bringing out 
details in the many nocturnal scenes and making it even more fun to play the counting game along the way. A new commentary by Greenaway finds him in full raconteur mode covering hundreds of topics including the number counting, the role of children in the story, the art references dotted throughout, the various visual tricks he employed, and his thoughts on film and other art forms. (Note that on the Blu-ray you have to manually switch tracks to get to the commentary, as the option from the special features menu doesn't work.) The Blu-ray also features several video extras including "Painting by Numbers" (14m28s), a new Greenaway video interview (recorded during a retrospective of his films in 2022 in L.A.) in which he touches on the autobiographical aspects of the production, his approach to death, and the role drawing plays in his artistic expression. In "Three Men and a Coroner" (9m53s), Hill looks back at his enthusiasm making the film, the origin of his character's name, the artful approach to blocking, his awareness of the various games played on screen, and the issues Greenaway's films faced with English audiences. A series of art concepts (5m29s) touches on the conceptions behind the characters and games, and the "Fear of Drowning" video short and theatrical trailer are also included. Very highly recommended.SEVERIN FILMS (Blu-ray)
MEDIUMRARE (Blu-ray)
KING RECORDS (Blu-ray)
