Goltzius and the Pelican Company

2012

2 hr. 8 min.

Biography

List

79%

14 Reviews

Tomatometer

64%

50+ Ratings

Audience Score

Goltzius and his theatrical troupe arrive at the palace of the Margrave of Alsace.

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Audience Member

Have to give it a pass for how lofty, weird but carefully directed it is. This isn't like any of Greenaway's other films in terms of direction and overall composition.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Greenaway's incessant use of screen gimmickry as canvas art adapted to the cinema is a put off making the plot a secondary shadow to his visual chaos. Sex scenes so stylized they become pornography without passion or eroticism make for an extremely boring movie. Thematic brutalizing and humiliation of male characters for its own sake is gratuitously woven into a pointless tawdry fabric. Nothing more than Eurotrash.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

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Audience Member

Interesting in the beginning, and really ironic, after a while it turns to repetitive and somewhat boring. Greenaway has made better things, to my opinion.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

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Audience Member

Peter Greenaway's grotesquerie.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

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Audience Member

Despite it's protracted length and repetitive nature, Greenway's unclassifiable, luscious, sexual fantasia is offbeat and something of it's own nature which I hope to see again, very soon in other films. Somewhere, Paolo Pasolini is smiling, and so am I.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/31/23

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Audience Member

So explicit in its sexual content So audacious in its visual So frustratingly byzantine in its narrative that its either doomed to obscurity or destined for cult status

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

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Peter Greenaway

Director

F. Murray Abraham

The Margrave

Vincent Riotta

Ricardo del Monte

Halina Reijn

Portia

Lars Eidinger

Quadfrey

Flavio Parenti

Eduard

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Mark Kermode

Observer (UK)

It's typical Greenaway - overly long, peacockingly erudite, eye-catchingly grotesque, perpetually mischievous, and gleefully up itself.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 14, 2014

Full Review

Geoffrey Macnab

Independent (UK)

Much of the writing is witty and erudite, and as flamboyant as the visuals. It's just a pity that the film droops markedly as it goes on.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 10, 2014

Full Review

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

No one else could have made this film - a fascinating and somewhat heart-sinking realisation.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 10, 2014

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Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

A moving, breathing entity that's intelligent and entertaining.

Aug 6, 2019

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Ben Nicholson

CineVue

Probably one for those already enamoured with its creator, though there are numerous fascinating threads to untangle from this baroque tapestry if one has the patience.

Rated: 3/5

Apr 2, 2019

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George Byrne

The Herald (Ireland)

Naturally, the scenes all deal with sex and depravity, but the levels of pretension are laughable and the whole thing ends up looking like an old Pet Shop Boys video.

Rated: 2/5

Jul 11, 2014

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Synopsis

Goltzius and his theatrical troupe arrive at the palace of the Margrave of Alsace.

Director: Peter Greenaway
Executive Producer: Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Ineke Kanters, Julia Ton
Screenwriter: Peter Greenaway
Genre: Biography
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 10, 2017