Prospero's Books

Greenaway rewrites Shakespeare for the autistically intellectual... Over-saturated, generally inaccessible and gradually weighed down by it's own overwhelming density, it's still a fascinating intertextual collage of various theatrical and (especially) aesthetic experiments.

Despite its visual uniqueness it's a rather boring retelling of the Tempest and difficult to follow as up until the end everyone has Prospero's voice.

This is two hours of Peter Greenaway going: You're stupid and illiterate, you're stupid and illiterate, you're stupid and illiterate.

The more I watch Greenaway, the more I hate his work. He always lures me with stunning visuals, but often there is nothing more in his films. It's a beautiful visualfest, but almost unwatchable thanks to a boring and tiring script.

Extraordinarily deep text, which is pretty inaccessible upon a single casual viewing. Perhaps this could be more rewarding upon a second viewing, but for now, I resent having to 'read' so much when I wanted to watch. I like a few Greenaway films, but there are a couple, like this, which are suffocated by their artificiality.

(Viewed on 27/06/14): Greenaway's obsession with digital imagery began here, and it was an unfortunate development that seriously derailed his career. His work has always been steeped in pretension and artifice, but P.B's dense overlapping imagery is a relentlessly gaudy assault on the senses that is reminiscent of old PC cd rom discs long discarded. In short, despite its formal adventurousness, it looks rather cheap, ugly, and dated, and the style completely overwhelms the material.

I'm sure there are people out there who would enjoy this. It's a good looking film if you like Felliniesque colours and and nudity and the text is Shakespeare being read to you by John Gielgud. None of this appeals to me so it was a tedious struggle just to get through it.

Probably Greenaway's most formally ambitious film, also the exact sort of thing i would have found unbearably pretentious ten years ago (it's sort of funny that my once-hated Pillow Book would in retrospect turn out to be in some sense at least Greenaway's most "free" and "spontaneous" film). It's certainly very impressive in it's own way, Greenaway working on all cylinders as it were, but it probably helps to be at least more familiar with Shakespeare than i myself am.

Por que esqueci de dar nota pra esse filme?

Little boys pissing while someone recites Shakespeare, who the fuck is this for?

The viewer is advised to be familiar with "The Tempest". The movie has the visual density of a music videoclip, but it is as long as a movie. You will stand up shaking at the end, or you will hate it completely. A movie, a theater presentation, a long painting... masterful use of video effects, very impressive "stuff": costumes, calligraphy, architecture. And of course, the incredible score by Michael Nyman.

I didn't understand it all that much (gaining some familiarity with The Tempest might help make it somewhat coherent) but damn...on an aesthetic level it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, not just beautifully made but also with just so much going on on the screen at any one time, it's so easy to get lost in all the dancing, gymnastics, opera, idiosyncratic editing, the wonderfully designed locations and characters and strangeness of it all. Meticulously crafted.

Greenaway's gorgeously constructed formalism is admirable, yet very oppressive. The source material doesn't really breath underneath the spectacle. Ultimately, I felt unfulfilled.

all I can say is, poor Mark Rylance, and the others who had to pretend to speak without opening their mouths.

It's a great Movie by Greenaway, probably his best. It's beautiful... in many ways. Saw the Movie many years ago in the TV and knew nothing about it before. So I was really surprised about the intense of this Movie. Would like to see it again but it's hard to find. Great Work

A really beautiful film. I lack a certain depth of knowledge about The Tempest that would have elevated this film to 'coherent' though.