Nightwatching

Directed by Peter Greenaway. Starring Martin Freeman, Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle, Jodhi May, Natalie Press, 18 cert. IFI, Dublin, 140 min

YOU COULD be forgiven for assuming that Peter Greenaway had fled film-making for a life making cheese or designing cathedrals. That is not the case. The imperishable English eccentric, director of The Draughtsman's Contractand Drowning by Numbers, has been plugging away at various characteristically oddball projects for the past decade.

None has made it on to our screens. So, with Nightwatching, a meditation on Rembrandt, Greenaway has finally got back into cinemas? Well, yes and no. The film's outing in the Irish Film Institute coincides with its release on DVD. Nightwatchinghas gone simultaneously straight to video and into cinemas.

The film proves to be worth a trip to the movie house. Casting off memories of Charles Laughton's great 1936 Rembrandt, Martin Freeman offers us a profane, cheeky, radical version of the great painter. Focusing most intently on the creation of (what else?) The Night Watch, the allusive script squints hard at the work and comes up with any number of social observations and fantastic conspiracy theories. Freeman (Tim from The Office) has the right sort of squashed good face for the artist, and Eva Birthistle offers nuanced support as his wife Saskia.

Unfortunately, the set-bound nature of the production does lend the finished result a somewhat claustrophobic feel. The vast tableaux are undeniably beautiful and they allude eloquently to the original paintings, but there are, perhaps, rather more of them than strictly necessary.

For all its flaws, however, Nightwatchingunquestionably comes across like the work of a singular director with plenty left to say. Let's trust Greenaway gets to say it in proper cinemas.