A Última Tempestade

Prospero's Books is perhaps difficult to watch and requires some patience, but it doesn't deserve the dragging through the mud that it has received from some of these comments. The best way to approach this film is to just calm down and sit back and enjoy it on a psychedelic level. To question it too much is to miss the point. Also, I don't understand the focus on the nudity that many of the comments here have. Again, it's a matter of just making yourself comfortable with it, and moving on. This is a remarkable piece of work, and it needs to be approached with an understanding that it is simply very different from what most people are used to seeing. And thank goodness for that. To say that it is "the worst movie ever" or some such comment is incredibly unfair and a bit misguided.

This is Peter Greenaway's most humane and enthralling feature, a visual tour-de-force which re-interprets Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' through the books of magic with which Prospero creates his realm. Sir John Gielgud gives a moving, heartfelt farewell performance in the title role, Michael Clarke is a sinuous, demonic Caliban, and Michael Nyman's score is fittingly triumphant. One sequence - the Masque - even turns the film into an opera.

Although the visuals are overloaded to a level of decadence rarely seen on film, it is always with a purpose. One quibble; Prospero's overlaying of his own voice on the characters makes some of the dialogue difficult to follow, especially if you are unfamiliar with the source material. The film demands to be seen on a wide screen.

i miss Gielgud very much already. his voice was so rich, and this film is a smorgasbord of his voice. i find most Shakespeare a bit heavy and sluggish, so strangely perhaps, i find this movie a nice interpretation. and the books, the water, and the nudity are all wonderful. Greenaway is with imagery a bit the way Shakespeare is with words, a bit over-flush, over-ripe; so sometimes he's good and sometimes it just seems like excess. the blue guy was interesting to watch as well. maybe not best to be viewed in one sitting, but more than just a mere film, like being drunk in a flower garden in spring. or perhaps i'm just being poofy.

I found Prospero's Books fascinating, on many levels, but it wasn't until my second or third time watching it that I realized the "key" to unlocking this film: It's a ballet.

This film is essentially images and motion choreographed to music (this realization struck me during the opening credit sequence in one viewing). Now, it's an unusual ballet: The "music" includes the mellifluous recitation of "The Tempest" by Gielgud, and the choreography includes things like digital manipulation of images, and the images are heavily influenced by renaissance paintings, but I maintain that the film is, fundamentally, a ballet.

That means that you shouldn't really expect a clear expression of the story, any more than you would from any other ballet. What you should expect is a series of interesting images choreographed to music inspired by "The Tempest". As with any ballet, you can follow it if you're already familiar with the story, but otherwise, you should read the play in advance.

And, just a couple of things about some of the most common criticisms: The naked people? Think of them as invisible - they are visual symbolic representations of the "airy spirits" Prospero commands, his magic. The infamous pissing? Ariel p***ing on a model ship is just an obvious visual metaphor for Ariel creating a storm over the real ship.

I love Shakespeare, to read and to see it performed. I also loved Prospero's Books. Granted, I've only watched it twice as yet, and will undoubtedly indulge in a course of dyed-in-the-wool over-intellectualization and cerebral gymnastics during some future viewing, but these first two viewings (with a lovely bottle of Beringer Brothers White Zinfandel) were utterly given over to happily losing all perspective and immersing myself into the fantastical visual orgy spread before me. But then, I also like Heironymus Bosch and Salvador Dali.

Films are to entertain. Film makers cannot be required to entertain each and every member of the viewing public with each film. That said, there is no rule specifying just how a film must entertain us, nor is there a rule limiting any of us to being entertained in a specific form. We can be entertained by purest brain candy, the most convoluted mystery, brilliant wit, even by being frightened witless or moved to tears. In this case, I took my entertainment from the unadulterated, hedonistic beauty - both of sight and sound - offered up in a blaze of brave disregard for bourgeois ideals, and I'm not the least apologetic.

Yes, it did enrich my life, just by the sheer beauty and excess of it.