SOURCE: French, Sean. “Spit Roast.” Sight and Sound 58, no. 4 (autumn 1989): 277–78.

In the following review, French offers a positive assessment of The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover, complimenting the film's visual style.

Eating is a constant theme in the films of Alfred Hitchcock. More oddly, as Donald Spoto observed in his biography, lavatories recur to a quite obsessive degree throughout his oeuvre. During his conversations with François Truffaut, Hitchcock, the greatest of cinematic gourmets, spoke of an ambition to make a film that would portray the life of a city through its food. It would show the raw ingredients being transported into the city, their preparation and consumption, and would then conclude in the sewers.

In The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (Palace), Peter Greenaway has come close to fulfilling Hitchcock's ambition. In fact, he has taken it further, portraying the whole...