Customer Reviews
A Story of Obsession - By: Farah Yousif, 10 Jul 2008 
I read the novel `Silk' by Alessandro Baricco & loved it. Therefore, I was rather wary of seeing the adaptation. But when I saw the film, I was not disappointed; the visual imagery is beautiful & the Japanese symbolism was well-related.
The location of the story is France in 1862. Herve (Michael Pitt) is convinced by Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) to travel in search of silkworm eggs in order to save the silk-making business. Herve travels to Africa & Japan. During his trip to Japan, he fallls in love with a Japanese concubine. When he returns home to France, he cannot forget the Japanese beauty & continues to obsessively long for her.
The untranslated Japanese conversations alllows the audience to relate to the main character, as he too does not understand the language. Keira Knightly made a wonderful `Hélène' but I wasn't convinced by Michael Pitt as the main character `Hervé Joncour'; the obsessive inner turmoil wasn't portrayed well on screen. Overalll, however, I think the film is well-worth seeing.
Beautiful, but boring - By: Bluebell, 08 Jul 2008 
The cinematography is superb with wonderful shots of dramatic scenery. However, the story has so little action & evolves so slowly the film becomes tedious to watch. I haven't read the book upon which the film is based, but I guess it contains a lot of introspection by a narrator & descriptions of feelings which are difficult to portray on screen, & certainly are not by lead actor's (Michael Pitt) performance, which is wooden & unconvincing as an intrepid traveller. Much of the story is conveyed by a voice-over narrated by Pitt in a mumbling, monotonous voice with little variation in tone that adds to the feeling of boredom.
Disappointing.
