ABSTRACT - In 1911, Ricciotto Canudo labeled the cinema as the Seventh Art and claimed that it was superior to the other so-far existing art forms. In 2012, the British filmmaker Peter Greenaway directed yet another film that makes use of all these arts and media to convey an authorial discourse on the importance of cinema and its versatility: "Goltzius and the Pelican Company" (UK). I contend that this art house film, unemotional, filled with distancing effects and exhibiting nakedness throughout, is, in fact, an extremely sensorial piece of cinema where corporeality is not only the form but also the message, both literally and metaphorically. I advocate that this cerebral film can be sensual and sensuous, both through the use of the characters’ bodies and the materiality of the text. I also consider that this film generates two types of qualified immersion in the viewer: an artistic appreciation derived from coenasthesia and film textures; and a narrative appreciation caused by alignment with the characters, their non-psychological nature notwithstanding. Allegory, as both a structural device and a conveyor of meaning, is responsible for the combination of spectatorial detachment and immersion.
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