DVD Review: Silk

DVD Reviews

By June L. Mar 3, 2008, 16:16 GMT

Silk is as delicate, strong and exotic as the fabric from which the movie takes its name. Part adventure into the unknown, part love story of challenging relationships, Silk is the kind of film that plays to all the senses.

Starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightly, along with Alfred Molina, Koji Yakusho Miki Nakatani, and Sei Ashina this is a story that will fill your mind with visual beauty and stimulate philosophical thoughts on the meaning of life and love.On the surface, Silk is an adventure story of the old type. Judged by modern standards of action adventure, there seems as if not much is going on, but this film is deceptively simple. On the surface it is the story of a young man and his travels. To truly appreciate the beauty of Silk, it requires the viewer to look deeply into everything, adopting a different sensibility, and play the philosopher as the events unfold. A young Frenchman is given the opportunity to travel through foreign lands to procure the eggs of healthy silk worms to make his village’s fortune. He is married to his sweetheart Helene, and it appears that their lives will become filled with every luxury as a result of his work.In understated narrative Herve describes his travels, while the viewer is given glimpses of the exotic landscapes through which the journey takes him. It is Herve’s story, so what is seen is how events and places are perceived by this young adventurer. For awhile the village prospers, but then again he must go back to Japan for more eggs. In spite of wars and difficulties he goes again and again into the exotic east. He carries with him a secret, an obsession with a young concubine of the Warlord that Herve has been dealing with for the eggs. In the story we see the two lives of Herve, prosperous townsman in 1860’s France, beloved by his wife and lovingly giving her everything in his power and bold adventurer to the strange and beautiful Japan where a different code seems to take hold of his spirit. Each of his two worlds are equally enthralling, and it is difficult to know which is Herve’s real home. Silk is presented on single disk in widescreen format with playing time of over 109 minutes. It is available in English with English and Spanish subtitles. There are no special features included on the disc, except for the film’s trailer. As if watching a silworm’s cocoon unravel into a delicate but amazingly strong thread, we see the filament of Herve’s life unravel over two continent and become woven into an entirely new textile of story. This beautiful film is rated R for sexuality and nudity, and has received some undeservedly bad reviews. Michael Pitt is perfect as Herve, a young man without preformed biases thrown into a strange new environment, where everything he has ever known is different. He manages to keep his two worlds separate, and conveys his love for both and his confusion at these feelings convincingly. Alfred Molina is good as the village entrepreneur and both Keira Knightly as Helene and Sei Ashina as the beautiful young concubine present characters that inspire both passion and love for Herve. It is slow moving by some standards, but that is to allow the viewer to take in the scene and develop his or her own feelings along with Herve. Silk is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a March 17th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.

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DVD Review: Silk

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