Silk
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.22 You Save: $16.76 (84%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.53 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Silk
Movie Review: Not So Good
Summary: 2 Stars
BEWARE: SMALL, POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW!
i don't know about the book, but the obviously intended drama doesn't materialize in this film. there's so much in a good novel that doesn't translate to the screen. i think maybe the film was miscast. i picture Colin Farrell in the lead role. as it is, Keira should have given this one a pass, but it must have seemed to have potential on paper.
it occurs to me that nothing ever happens between the two potential lovers. so the story is reduced to a couple of hours of longing and remembered longing.
great cinematography, though i don't think all of it was real. good music, too.
re another review: what does it mean to say a film is a "tone poem"? it's not enough for a film to create a mood with images and music.
Movie Review: Visually Magnificent...but Dull Script Detracts From That
Summary: 2 Stars
Well, I just finished watching Silk, and all I can think about is the hour and a half of my life I'll never get back...The scenery in this movie is a feast for the eyes, and the only pro as the dull and lifeless script made me fast-forward through most of the movie. I found the characters to be very underdeveloped, as well as the plot; specifically I had issue when Michael Pitt's character Herve develops an fixation with a Japanese concubine, which is a major reason why he makes repeated trips back to Japan (the backbone of the movie), seems very unfounded; the two have very little screen time and no dialogue, yet an "obsession" blooms. If you love historical fiction as I do, I recommend something more satisfying... like the English Patient, Zelery, Pride & PrejudiceMovie Review: On Silk
Summary: 1 Stars
It's been years since I read the Alessandro Barrico novella this film was based off, but what I do remember is its slight weight - the book is 91 pages long, the pages being not much bigger than your average Japanese paperback and a good many of them only half-inscribed. The book is minimalist and quite heavily stylised in its language. Translating such a book onto celluloid would be a tough ask for anyone.
'Silk', like its namesake, certainly looks the part. The entire film has been beautifully shot, and landscapes that depict the main character, Herve's, crossing of Eurasia are particularly breathtaking. Costumes, sets, every visual has been executed with an eye to even the smallest detail. 'Silk' is sumptuous to look upon. Unfortunately, that's about all the film has to recommend itself.
Plotwise, the film narrative follows the book adequately. Herve Joncour (Michael Pitt), on leave from the French Army in 1862, returns to the small French village where his father is mayor and falls in love with the local school teacher, Helene (Keira Knightley); he's promised a helping hand in marrying her by the entrepreneur, Baldabiou (Alfred Molina), if he agrees to fetch silkworm eggs to replenish the town's disease-ridden stocks. Herve of course agrees, gets to marry Helene, and soon enough is on his way to Japan, where he becomes infatuated with the village headman's beautiful, silent concubine. The rest of the film is concerned with the results of this infatuation over the course of the next decade or so. Coming as it does from such a skeletal book, stretching the film out to two hours was a mistake. The action crawls at a pace that would put a snail to shame, and most of the plot developments are predictable (barring the final revelation, which even in the book I thought was ridiculous).
This was a script that relied heavily on its actors to bring fresh life to characters and stories that audiences these days are all too familiar with. And therein lies my biggest gripe with 'Silk'. In the hands of a charismatic or capable lead actor, the film may have overcome its stilted pacing, but whoever decided to cast Michael Pitt in the lead role might have been better off casting two planks of wood. There's very little connection with the character and no attempts made to connect with the audience; Pitt has, if I might borrow a phrase from Hermione Granger, the emotional range of a teaspoon. Every line (including endless voiceovers) is delivered in the same unremarkable, Romeo-in-the-tenth-grade-play mumble. Pitt looks throughout the entire film either half-asleep, stoned or suffering the after-effects of a stroke. As a lead actor in a romantic drama about unrequited love and passionate obsession, his is possibly one of the worst performances in recent memory.
It's only Keira Knightley's performance as the faithful Helene that rescues this film from complete frigidity. Known mostly to me in roles where the adjectives 'exaggerated', 'extroverted' or 'spirited' are simply bywords for 'annoying as all get out', Knightley shows surprising restraint in her portrayal of Helene as the childless wife, growing more weary and heartsore as the years pass, knowing full well her husband's heart is (supposed to be) possessed by another. Despite her dearth of screen time, in the end it is Helene's anguish and turmoil that provides the only real emotional connection within the film.
I was disappointed with the film's rather stereotypical portrayal of Japan as the Inscrutable Orient. The village headman is kindness and generosity itself until he (inevitably, inexplicably) turns on Herve. The nameless women are presented as subservient to the point of mutability; the headman's concubine disappears into the onsen waters as though her existence were nothing more than a wisp of smoke. Japanese women here are basically reduced to sexual objects, so much so the only one permitted to speak is a prostitute, plying her trade in France. Incredibly disappointing.
Overall, 'Silk' is a beautiful looking film that is seriously hampered with issues of pacing and a lead actor who couldn't act his way out of a mime's imaginary box. Devotees of landscapes, cinematography, or Keira Knightley might get something out of it, but for the general populace - do yourself a favour and just read the book (it'll take less time).
Movie Review: A lifeless, listless, loveless love story
Summary: 1 Stars
Like many well-intentioned adaptations, "Silk" fails in its horrible execution. We supposedly have an adventurous silk trader, Herve Joncour (Michael Pitt), who undertakes the perilous journey from France to Japan in the mid-1800s in search of blight-free silkworm eggs that would ensure his village's prosperity in the silk industry. Married to a fetching wife and, from all accounts, in love with her, our intrepid traveler becomes obsessed with a Japanese concubine in his first trek to Yamagata. On the pretext that Japan's silkworm eggs are worth the frequent traveler miles, Herve returns to Japan to obtain yet another glimpse of his amour. We are obliged to accept that the largely lethargic Pitt traverses these thousands of miles (3 times!) by carriage, rail, ship, caravan and horseback, when it looks like he can't even get across town without being toppled by a strong breeze. Straining to evoke a Dr. Zhivago-like epic, it only succeeds at looking ludicrous. Permanently sporting a pout like a child scolded for playing with worms, Pitt mumbles in a monotone with one wooden facial expression all throughout, in perfect accompaniment to his sleep-deprived droning voiceover narration for the film's painful 110 minutes. As badly miscast and as anemic as Pitt's acting is, it is equaled, agonizingly enough, by the same lifeless performance of Keira Knightley as Herve's wife Helene. Mostly relegated to bidding Herve a spiritless goodbye whenever he departs and a spiritless hello whenever he returns, one wonders if the absence of affect and chemistry with the two was a joke on the audience that they secretly delighted in.
It may have been possible to forgive such lackluster acting if there was a story to behold. When the procurement of silkworm eggs is more riveting than Herve's infatuation with the unnamed concubine, then I know there's no redemption. I am as perplexed as those who've seen director Francois Girard's "Red Violin" in the `90s, a magnificent film that remains one of my favorites to this day. A feudal Japan of the 1800s, still closed to the west, with its warring warlords and bewildering culture would have been ripe for exposition, injecting the much-needed tensions and conflicts the film sorely lacks. To not have attempted to incorporate it in any meaningful way with the lame love story was a fatal mistake. At least, it could have given the dying plot a fighting chance. This is nothing more than another dull and dreary depiction of the white man's fantasy of the submissive, exotic female, a stereotype that really is getting old.
I'm no stranger to arthouse, but honestly, it's films like this that give arthouse a bad reputation. The fantastic cinematography in "Silk," with breathtaking panoramic shots of Japan in winter, cannot rescue this inferior film. I've seen nature documentaries on PBS with more gist and drama than this turgid exercise. Come to think of it, I've seen turtles with more passion.
Movie Review: Just some mess!
Summary: 1 Stars
This movie is a rushed, half-hearted mess! I've loved Alfred Molina since "Frida" and I hope this bad film doesn't negatively impact his career.
This film works by the concept "less is more." The lead characters are always tight-lipped and have close to no lines. I think it's meant to imply that they are too deep for words, but it'll definitely make the viewer think, "Who chopped all the dialogue out of this?!" As a period piece, this work is kinda plain. You see a few nice outfits and a few, very small settings. The makers must not have had a budget to do more, or something. You'll see better outfits and settings of Europe and Japan in films like "Farinelli" or "Memoirs of a Geisha."
While a lot of stuff is rushed, a lot of stuff is painfully prolonged. The main character and his French wife are instantly in love. You never see their courtship develop. It's like they just become a couple because he's a man and she's a woman. There's no reason why the main character should fall in love with his Japanese paramour. Again, there is no dialogue or development for that. I highly doubt in conservative Japan, elders would let a young lady get down with a foreigner to whom she is not married so easily. On the other hand, when the main character first travels from France to Japan, he doesn't just take a boat. It's like he took a coach, then a train, then a camel, then a unicorn, and then he practically swam the Sea of Japan.
Whereas Huang's "M. Butterfly" made an interesting and needed twist on "Madame Butterfly," this film does nothing fresh to address East-West schisms. Like always, the West is masculine, the East is feminine. This film is highly disappointing. It is not a well-done arthouse piece; it's a cheap impostor.