Dir. Peter Greenaway | Poland | Netherlands | Canada | 2007 | 141 min. | Drama

The film begins in 1642. Rembrandt is perhaps the most famous painter in Europe and his profession has made him extremely wealthy. His agent and his pregnant business savy wife convince him to take a new commission…to paint the Amsterdam Musketer Militia, a group of puffed up merchant who play at soldiering. It is only when he learns of the seedy conspiracies including a murder, plotted with their ranks that he decides to expose their ugly deeds and hypocrisies through the portrait itself.” (Toronto International Film Festival)

In look and tone, Nightwatching represents a return to the Peter Greenaway style of old (Director of The Cook, The Thief, The Draughtsman’s Contract). Visually an unexpectedly rich affair, Greenaway’s take on the enigmatic painting The Night Watch, is played on open theatrical sets enhanced by celestial lighting, where Rembrandt’s middle period becomes a series of tableaux of love, lust and fear. The hidden meaning of paintings is obviously the theme of the day.

"Rembrandt is captured in all his joyful, bawdy, self analyzing ways, prey to passions and capable of real love." (Variety)