Let me just say first, that this is one of the most extravagant films I have ever seen purely in the sense of sight & sound. I'm a huge fan of Peter Greenaway's work ever since I saw The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover a couple of years ago, so I knew partially what to expect vibe wise, but this movie stood out from the other 3 I have seen. It reminded me more of the A Zed & Two Noughts and less of The Cook or The Baby of Macon. In what manner, do you ask? In the manner that I had absolutely no idea what was happening through literally the ENTIRE film. I could not even gather the SYNOPSIS from the entire two hour runtime. It says a magician tries to stop his daughter from having an affair with an enemy, but I was paying close attention for the entire 2 hour runtime and never did I observe "an enemy", "an affair" of any sort, or Prospero attempting to stop anything. So, naturally, I have to say that this is the movie's primary downfall - some would argue "it's not a movie" because it's impossible to follow, but none such rules need to exist. I don't think I would ever watch the film again while actually paying full attention, but I will certainly be adding this to my queue of some of the most beautiful feasts for the eyes ever put to film, and I will most certainly be turning it on in the background at social gatherings in the future. It will be a nice change of pace from my usual Tales of Beatrix Potter - Featuring The Royal Ballet. I will say it's a great accomplishment in a fully singular manner, and it's absurd that this was made with a budget of under 2 million dollars while movies like Terminator 2, made the same year, cost about 100 million. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this is one of the most expensive looking movies I have ever seen. It's breathtaking, but it is absolutely not going to "do it" for most people. It's most certainly film art.

I find it silly that nobody seems to be in the middle about this movie! All reviews are either giving it a 10 and calling it an utter mastepiece, or giving it a 1 or 2 and calling it absolute garbage! There is most certainly a middle ground! Pros and cons, my friends!

Whatever else you might say about Prospero's Books, it is certainly original. Despite its being based on the Shakespeare play "The Tempest".

Like the play, the movie posits some kind of unnatural or supernatural power residing in the books in question; but the movie takes a stab at just what these books might have contained, and so considers them more as books in the traditional sense--as founts of knowledge that can impart, to the capable reader, newfound powers--than as what they represent in the plays, a repository for magical spells.

Thus it is postulated that in addition to their use in prayer and for amusement, books may yield powers of an immediate kind--powers beyond those available through the knowledge of oral traditions, say. This can perhaps be construed as a schema for science fiction; but such an interpretation is new with Greenaway's work.

I found the ubiquitous nudity distracting for the first ten or fifteen minutes, but quickly became used to it. It is effective in creating an atmosphere--indeed, as an Edinburgh Film Society review notes, "the sheer volume of naked flesh on display is almost surreal." I think it was surreal; I think that was the point, in part at least. To characterize this as pornography is to be terminally clueless.

The other common complaint about this film, that it is pretentious, will depend entirely on whether you think it has been successful in giving us a remarkably fresh reinterpretation of Shakespeare. I think it has been, though the last half-hour dragged a bit.

John Gielgud plays ex-Duke Prospero in Peter Greenaway's version of Shakespeare's The Tempest, stuck on an island with sprite, Ariel, monster servant Caliban and his beloved daughter Miranda, who falls in love with Prospero's enemy's son Ferdinand.

By and large, you either love or hate Greenaway who, as on this occasion, devotes his time to the film's visuals, somewhat at the expense of the emotions that the tale should bring. If you accept this though it is a rare treat. Greenaway's design for every second of this unique film experience is full of dance, colour, striking architecture, cinematic tricks and wonderfully choreographed movement (and an awful lot of nudity) topped off by Michael Nyman's music. It has oft been said that Greenway's films are like watching a moving renaissance painting and this is particularly the case here. Startling production to look at, if possibly a bit hard work at times.