PROSPERO'S BOOKS Film Review - 7/8/06

Having seen a number of films by Director Peter Greenaway; I had never seen his version of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" adapted as "Prospero's Books" and starring John Gielgud. This abrasive film is like having your nuts rubbed raw with sandpaper and then ingesting a bucket of morphine, cocaine, acid, speed, heroin and opium all mixed together. If you didn't believe in magic before - after watching this film you will. A dazzling, multi-layered texture of colours and sounds, dance and settings, played in what looks like a Turkish Bath with strange costumes and movements, careering out of control amidst stimulating and very often bizarre pictures and coverings, of ink, material, camera work and props give this production a real often unsettling otherworldly feel. If Shakespeare could have envisaged the camera/film he would have been astonished at how his play has been translated into something so isoteric. Unfortunately Greenaway's films haven't been dealt a very good hand in the DVD market and "Prospero's Books" hasn't even made it that far - being only available on VHS Video with no sign of a transfer to DVD on the horizon. This film needs an over haul and a chance to be seen by a wider audience not just the art crowd - As Peter Greenaway himself said "I don't film a film with a sell-by date" so in affect all his work is timeless much like Shakespeare himself.