Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18963 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Japanese, Latin
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.com
Set in the 19th century, when Japan was closed to the West, Silk offers an unusual love story revolving around Herve (Michael Pitt), wife Helene (Keira Knightley) and the young unnamed beauty to whom he has never shared a conversation (played by Sei Ashina). With the small fortune he has made from smuggling silkworm eggs from Japan, Herve purchases a grand home in France with a nice parcel of land that is suitable for Helene's dream garden. But when the silkworms die, Herve is commissioned to return to Japan to buy more eggs so the townspeople can resume their lucrative silk-manufacturing business. There, Herve once again sees the Japanese baron's concubine who stares at him with longing but remains silent. While he is soaking in a bath, she hands him a note written in Japanese that he later learns reads, "Come back or I will die." Filled with good intentions, Silk doesn't carry enough dramatic weight to garner much viewer interest. That Pitt is American, Knightley is British, and neither attempts a French accent is forgivable. But there is little chemistry shared by any of the leads, who are undeniably gorgeous but in an impassionate and cold way. Pitt's mournful delivery and the clunky dialogue don't help matters much. Staring at their lush garden full of flowers in bloom, Helene says, "You said this is where we'd grow old. Are we old?" Near the end of the film, Herve receives another letter written in Japanese that talks at length about love, faith, and the need to go on. The sender of the letter may surprise some viewers, but the ending is more implausible than a revelation. Based on the novel of the same name by Alessandro Baricco, Silk essentially is little more than a movie of the week disguised as an arthouse film. --Jae-Ha Kim

Customer Reviews

'Come back or I shall die'
For those who fell under the spell of Alessandro Baricco's novel SILK, a meditation about love, desire, and conflict, this cinematic transformation adapted as a screenplay and directed by François Girard will not disappoint: reservations about making Baricco's poetry visual are for the most part put to rest. The resulting film, SILK, is supported by a sensitive cast, wondrous cinematography by Alain Dostie, a haunting musical score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and is an appropriate extension of the beauty of Baricco's short novel.

Set in France in 1862, Hervé Joncour (Michael Pitt) is following his family tradition of military duty until a somewhat mysterious man named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) approaches Hervé's father Mayor Joncour (Kenneth Welsh) with an idea to increase the tiny French town's revenues by capitalizing on the manufacture of silk. He talks the town council into fortifying his project and in a short time Baldabiou has several silk mills running. A problem arises when an infection attacks the silkworm eggs and threatens to destroy the business. Baldabiou convinces Hervé to travel to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to solve the dwindling supply. Hervé, meanwhile, has met and fallen in love with the beautiful Hélène (Keira Knightley) who is loving enough to encourage Hervé's travel to Africa for the eggs, a trip Hervé makes and returns with eggs that make the town's mills thrive, allowing the prospering relationship between Hervé and Hélène to result in marriage and hopes for a happy future.

The eggs are again attacked by disease and this time Baldabiou sends Hervé to Japan where the perfect eggs can be smuggled out of the country: the trip is arduous, long (through Europe, Russia, China to Japan), and while Hervé succeeds in securing the precious eggs, he also loses his heart to the seductive eyes of the baron's concubine (Sei Ashina). Upon returning home the town prospers, Hervé and Hélène try to have children, but Hervé is again forced to travel to Japan for more eggs - and to fulfill the longing to see the concubine again. Japan is now at war and the trip is far more harrowing than before and while Hervé doesn't satisfy his desire for the concubine, she gives him a note in Japanese as he departs for France. Upon returning to France, Hervé has the note translated: 'Come back or I shall die'. His love for Hélène remains strong and he shares the experience he had in Japan. A letter is delivered to Hervé, a beautiful love letter, and it is at this point that Hélène becomes ill and the events that transpire bring life to the real meaning of love in an unexpected way.

There are problems with the film: the Japanese conversations are not translated by subtitles (perhaps the director wants us to feel the alienation of a Frenchman in a strange land) making the viewer feel that chunks of the story are missing; the emphasis of the film is more concentrated on the beauty of the various locales than on the character development; Michael Pitt is a fine actor but the inner conflicts of his character are not explored well. But these flaws are minor when the scope of the film is viewed in full. It is a beautiful work and one that will satisfy the readers of the novel from which it was adapted. Grady Harp, February 08

A lifeless, listless, loveless love story
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.

"What We Were Meant To Do We Have Done"
The '07 romance `Silk' is one of the most visually stunning films in recent memory which in and of itself is enough reason for one to give this movie a viewing. Unfortunately once you move beyond the lush, sumptuous landscape and the hopelessly romantic soundtrack you come face to face with a slow, plodding storyline that even the most lovelorn amongst us would have trouble staying with.

Keira Knightley is the vision of loveliness her audience has come to expect but love interest Michael Pitt is way over his head, failing to display the emotional depth and angst required for this role. With a more established, polished actor in this role who knows, maybe this could've been a love story for the ages?