effects of a powerful Pluto transit.
Set in the decadence and decay of present-day Rome, the city acts as an ominous parallel for the fate of one Stourley Kracklite (Dennehy), a powerful architect at the pinnacle of his career whose life is soon to emulate the fall of the ancient city. Dennehy's Kracklite is thoroughly Plutonian. Possessing a ravenous appetite for the sensual pleasures of life, Kracklite appears never to be satiated by enough recognition, success, wine and women. As Pluto also symbolizes the powerful and destructive conversion of opposites, the same devouring lust for life with which Kracklite approaches everything begins to turn on him in midlife.
On some level conscious that his hedonistic lifestyle and success are not fulfilling, Kracklite begins to let the Plutonic upswelling that is manifesting from his unconscious into his life as a paranoid somatization of his true existential hunger; he is obsessed with the idea that he has developed stomach cancer. However, as a Pluto transit demands the highest degree of honest self-assessment and moral courage, Kracklite is unable to face the true source of his pain, and his world crumbles before him. In the midst of his greatest architectural project, his personal and professional life is deconstructed.
Scared of the vulnerability that emerges within him, Kracklite begins to resort to very human responses to alleviate the anxiety: manipulation, denial, abuse, power plays, and rage. In the end, the disembowelment of his soul and life leaves him with nothing except the necessity and opportunity to rebuild his life more consistent with his real needs and desires.
Greenaway, like many of the directors on this list, was experiencing his generational Pluto square Pluto transit while directing Belly of an Architect. (see chart; solar only) Composer Wim Mertens's passionate and relentless minimalism, the film's epicurean feasts, and saturated blood red sets and costumes suggest the overindulgence, passion, and purgatorial swelling of Pluto. Besides watching Dennehy's greatest silver screen performance, Belly of an Architect is necessary viewing for all voyeurs needing to observe the effects of a destructive Pluto transit.
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