Drowning by Numbers (1988)

Join the Seths as they dive in - oh! hold on, maybe they'll just wade in at first - all the suspicious watery deaths in Peter Greenaway's 1988 bawdy, color-drenched dark comedy Drowning By Numbers (starring Joan Plowright, Juliette Stevenson, Joely Richardson and Bernard Hill) have got them nervous about diving in to anything! Continuing their trend of working with repeated names, the Seths analyze a story about three women who all share the name Cassie Colpits. The Cassies lead us down a strange and emotionally detached primrose path through a series of untimely deaths delivered in a most non-chalant style against a backdrop of old-masters-inspired painterly settings filled with oversaturated imagery of rotting fruit, glorious fabrics, beautiful landscapes, and lots and lots of sheep. Will we discover who's to blame for the drownings - and if we do, will anyone care? Is this reality, or the inside of a bizarre dream, or does it all exist in a child's mentally-projected snowglobe? We'll find out together this week on The Cult Section!