Silk
by Franois Girard
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DVD details
Actor: Keira Knightley, Kji Yakusho, Michael Pitt, Sei Ashina, Tony VogelDirector: Franois Girard
Brand: Warner
Writer: Michael Golding
Writer: Franois Girard
Writer: Alessandro Baricco
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Japanese (Original Language); Latin (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
Published: 2008-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-26
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: New Line Home Video
DVD Reviews of Silk
DVD Review: Vacuous Cocoon
Summary: 2 Stars
Based on the prose-poem novel by Alessandro Baricco, director Francois Girard's `Silk' excruciates its audience by trying way too hard to be a beautiful genre film complete with spectacularly photographed vistas of France and Japan, profoundly symphonic music and the kind of pretty crinoline-d costumes in which most bodice-ripping aficionados would want to be corseted. However attractive, `Silk' wears thin right from the get-go.
Michael Pitt, severely miscast as Herve Joncour (why not James McAvoy?), plays this 19th century purveyor of silk eggs--a supposed intrepid adventurer traveling from Lyon to Africa and Japan--with a spectrum of emotions limited to a flat line expression of distracted cherub-faced banality. Does anything faze this person? Is his cravat tied too tightly? Not really--Pitt spends most of the movie in kimono, so he's definitely comfortable. Nevertheless, when Herve experiences sensual exquisiteness--be it women (two lusciously yet polarly different beauties--the fair Helene (Keira Knightly) and the nameless dark and sultry Japanese concubine (Sei Ashina) or nature--- he flitters through a pastel flower-strewn rendition of Monet's France (Girard's scene at the beach captures in essence the painting "La Promenade, la Femme a l'Ombrelle") and meanders through a misty art house imagining of rural Japan that suggests the fragile Haiku tension of "Snow Falling on Cedars", he pouts with the one-note prissiness that stamps him as a graduate in fine standing from the quintessential "you'll-never-understand-me" school of teen television drama, "Dawson's Creek. With blue-green eyes that are quick to water - his only visual sign of emotion, other than a slackness of his full lips--he stumbles through 20 years of his life on a confused quest for his idea of perfection. Ironically, Helene, his wife, waits at home for the garden and child she has promised herself while he pants over his conceptualization of a woman with whom he has never spoken with the persistence and deadened optimism of a voyeur clicking through mega-sites of Internet porn.
So what's it all about and is it worth two hours of the viewer's time? No. Even for die-hard Knightly fans, `Silk' offers scant opportunity for this actress to really hone her craft and shine in any way other than that of a lovely accoutrement to an already lovely backdrop. She spends most of her screen time in a languorous pre-`Atonement' wait state-- I have come to think of this film as an exercise to her more intense character of Cecelia opposite James McAvoy in `Atonement.' There, too, her angular body is positioned in an ultimate welcoming or goodbye posture. Here, she is less bitter, her jaw still clenched while her arms remain outstretched ready to grab her errant husband to her bosom each and every time he returns from his trek for eggs. Sadly, unfulfilled in her inability to conceive a child or understand her husband's restlessness--of this I conjecture, as the plot of the film reveals little of the underpinnings of her mind--she conveys an overall feeling of the unessential role women, in general, portrayed in life then and perhaps, even in life today.
And just how are women depicted? If we enjoy a football game, we are inundated with glimpses of cheerleader's legs, breasts and swatches of long hair swaying. If we like cars or cameras, well, there is always a model or two glad to sell you the latest technological advancement while allowing a glimpse or two of their corporeal delicatessens. It comes as no surprise that there are certain women who sell their sexuality to make their way in a world that has been designed by men. Are we to believe that that is the only alternative? In `Silk,' a film intended to be appealingly romantic to women, we again are reminded that women hold a secondary role--the concubine does not speak, yet Herve is entranced--by what? Her subservience? Helene is fetching indeed, but as Herve doesn't seem to care, why should we? All those poetic musings in the Baricco novel come off as the usual stereotypical drivel that reduces women to commodities rather than flesh and blood individuals with needs of their own. Shame on you, M. Girard. I might as well watch the Speed Channel.
Bottom line? Don't waste your time or your money on this one. The plot is boring. The actors wallow in self-pity. Yes, the photography waxes aesthetic but you would do better with a picture book of exotic locales. The music accentuates the maudlin nauseating character study of the insipid Herve, but I'd rather listen to something truly impassioned like Rachmaninoff. Personally, I am tired of the mentality of depicting pretty women being flaunted as tidbits to make men's lives more comfortable, be it a Playboy spread or a tea ceremony. Enough already. I can deal with a little manipulation. Just show me some strength.
I awarded this movie two stars, both of which go to Alfred Molina as Herve's boisterous boss man. He is the only player that livened up the so-called action in this snore fest. Not recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"
Description of Silk
Based on the best-selling novel by Alessandro Baricco, Silk is a visually stunning epic spanning two continents. Hervé Joncour's (Michael Pitt) devotion to his beautiful bride (Keira Knightley) is tested by increasingly, dangerous trade missions in search of silkworms for his towns survival. From his journeys to Japan, Hervé brings great wealth for his village, but with each return to the Far East he becomes torn by the temptation of a local warlords sensuous concubine and his love for Hèléne.Bestsellers in DVD
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