The distributor has acquired Us rights to Werner Herzog’s drama starring Nicole Kidman and James Franco and will release in spring 2017.
Benaroya Pictures financed Queen Of The Desert and Michael Benaroya produced with Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan.
Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis also star in the Berlin 2015 world premiere about British explorer, cartographer and archaeologist Gertrude Bell on an epic odyssey to chart the borders of the modern Middle East.
Jonathan Debin, Cathy Gesualdo, James Lejsek, Ben Sachs, D. Todd Shepherd, Shelley Madison, Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro served as executive producers on Queen Of The Desert.
“The entire team at IFC Films is thrilled to be working once more with Werner Herzog who is undoubtedly a modern master of cinema,” said IFC, which brokered the deal with Elwes, Lawrence Kopeikin and CAA on behalf of the filmmakers.
“Having previously worked with him on his award-winning Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, Werner continues...
Benaroya Pictures financed Queen Of The Desert and Michael Benaroya produced with Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan.
Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis also star in the Berlin 2015 world premiere about British explorer, cartographer and archaeologist Gertrude Bell on an epic odyssey to chart the borders of the modern Middle East.
Jonathan Debin, Cathy Gesualdo, James Lejsek, Ben Sachs, D. Todd Shepherd, Shelley Madison, Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro served as executive producers on Queen Of The Desert.
“The entire team at IFC Films is thrilled to be working once more with Werner Herzog who is undoubtedly a modern master of cinema,” said IFC, which brokered the deal with Elwes, Lawrence Kopeikin and CAA on behalf of the filmmakers.
“Having previously worked with him on his award-winning Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, Werner continues...
- 11/1/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
IFC Films has acquired U.S. rights to the Werner Herzog drama “Queen of the Desert,” starring Nicole Kidman and James Franco. The film is an adventure biopic about explorer and cartographer Gertrude Bell. More to come. Read the full release: IFC Films announced today from the American Film Market conference that the company has acquired Us rights to Werner Herzog‘s Queen Of The Desert. The film, written and directed by Herzog, stars Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis. The film was produced by Michael Benaroya, Cassian Elwes and Nick Raslan and was executive produced by Jonathan Debin,...
- 11/1/2016
- by Matt Donnelly
- The Wrap
This review was written for the festival screening of "Silk".Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/12/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This review was written for the festival screening of "Silk".Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/12/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than "Silk" has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid "The Red Violin") stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/12/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than Silk has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid The Red Violin) stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
TORONTO -- The arresting European and Japanese locales, period costumes, sets and props all seem poised for a much richer and more significant movie than Silk has to offer. You search its images, which seems to have more to do with mid-19th century methods of international travel than characters or events, for any sort of action to glom on to. Few movies ever have gone to such a length to tell so slight -- and, worse, unengaging -- a story.
Based on Alessandro Baricco's 1996 best-selling novel, this film by Francois Girard (who made the splendid The Red Violin) stages a love story with an O. Henry ending against the world of the silk trade in the 1860s. It's an exotic world that requires a man to make a dangerous journey from France to Japan -- prior to the Suez Canal -- no less than three times, estranging him from his wife back home but creating a romantic obsession with a Japanese girl who lives "at the end of the world."
Stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley are ill-suited to this period. They are modern actors who feel out of time and place despite their costumes, and their talents are poorly used by this moody tone poem of far-flung loves. Audiences will find the whole thing an alien puzzle, filled with wondrous images that are little more than postcards from the past. Knightley's current popularity and the book's admirers may create enough buzz for a solid opening. After that, boxoffice looks to be light.
Pitt's Herve Joncour appears headed for a run-of-the-mill military career until a trader named Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) plucks him from the army to journey to Africa to buy silkworm eggs to replace those ruined by a mysterious disease in Europe. However, the epidemic reaches Africa before Herve does. So the only hope for the silk mills that has caused Herve's hometown to prosper is for him to journey to Japan, a country entirely closed to foreigners, to buy pristine eggs.
His three trips to Japan, each increasingly more dangerous, drives an unspoken wedge between him and his wife, Helene (Knightley), who remains childless. Meanwhile, in a snowy mountain village in Japan, where he is led each time blindfolded, for whatever reason, he falls under the protection of a powerful baron, Hara Jubei (Koji Yakusho).
The baron's concubine intrigues him. On his second visit he is gifted with his own girl of ethereal beauty (Sei Ashina). Their lovemaking is as photogenic as Girard can make it.
Even Baldabiou warns him against a third visit. A rebellion has broken out in Japan. Yet Herve's obsession with The Girl forces him to return. So again, for a third time, the film treats the viewer to the train trip from Vienna to Moravia, a caravan to cross 3,000 miles of Russian steppes, a boat ride in a smuggler's ship and that blindfolded horse trip up the mountain. It's a long way to go to get laid.
You learn little about the silk trade or these characters or the political tumult and war that make the journeys so tricky. All Girard and co-writer Michael Golding seek out are gorgeous shots of travel, exotic lands, the picturesque French village (actually shot in Italian towns), the silk factory, steaming bathing pools in Japan surrounded by snow and lovemaking at each end of the earth.
What a gorgeous coffee table book these images would make. But what a dull movie.
SILK
Picturehouse
Picturehouse presents in association with Alliance Atlantis/Asmik Ace Entertainment/Mesuda Film a Rhombus Media/Fandango/Bee Vine Pidctures presentation
Credits:
Director: Francois Girard
Writers: Francois Girard, Michael Golding
Based on the novel by: Alessandro Baricco
Producers: Niv Fichman, Nandine Luque, Domenico Procacci, Sonoko Sakai
Executive producers: Tom Yoda, Yashshi Shina, Akira Ishii, Camela Galano, Jonathan Debin, Patrice Theroux, Alessandro Baricco
Director of photography: Alain Dostie
Production designer: Francois Seguin
Costume designers: Carlo Poggioli, Kazuko Kurosawa
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto
Editor: Pia Di Ciaula
Cast:
Herve Joncour: Michael Pitt
Helene Joncour: Keira Knightley
Baldabiou: Alfred Molina
Hara Jubei: Koji Yakusho
Madame Blanche: Miki Nakatani
Ludovic: Mark Rendall
Girl: Sei Ashina
Running time -- 109 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/12/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Adolf Hitler's architect, Albert Speer, once said that to understand Hitler, you have to understand that he was an artist first. This year, an exhibit of Hitler's paintings at a Massachusetts museum took up that quest. Now, delving further into this previously unexplored territory, writer-director Menno Meyjes seeks out the man within the monster in "Max", the story of Hitler's attempt to establish himself as a painter.
There will be those, of course, who cannot abide any attempt to humanize the 20th century's major villain. Yet in his directorial debut, Meyjes, who has written such films as "The Color Purple" and "The Siege", rewards adventurous filmgoers with a speculative fiction that makes connections and provokes ideas worth considering about the emotional makeup of this tyrant. Lions Gate has a solid art house entry in "Max", albeit one that needs very careful handling.
In exploring Hitler's flirtation with modernism and the notion, following the brutality of World War I, that art can energize the human spirit, Menno shows how art and politics fuse together in Hitler's mind: Politics, Hitler comes to believe, is the new art.
The story is of a fictional friendship between two war veterans in 1918 Munich. Hitler, played with mesmerizing intensity by Noah Taylor, is a ragged, emotionally scarred corporal who comes home to nothing save his art. Max Rothman, played by suave and worldly John Cusack, is a wealthy German Jew who becomes an art dealer when the war costs him his right arm and his own painting career.
Max fervently believes in the new art. In a vast factory he has turned into a gallery, Max exhibits paintings by George Grosz and other modernists -- the kind of art Hitler will one day label as "decadent." Max maintains a solid bourgeois facade with a loving wife (Molly Parker) and family yet maintains a mistress, an artist named Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), and acts as friend and mentor to struggling painters.
In Hitler, Max sees marginal artistic ability but recognizes a despair and passion that could fuel his art. Put that "pent-up stuff" on the canvas, he advises Hitler. But art must battle politics for Hitler's soul. He paints less and writes more. Despite his friendship with Max, a Jew, Hitler flirts with anti-Semitism, a kind of tired thinking Max labels as "kitsch."
But Hitler, who sees insults in everything and nurses grudges with perverse delight, cannot let go of a theory that so marvelously captures audience attention in his speeches. When Max's friends and especially Liselore react to Hitler's vulgarity, Max dismisses this. "He had a bad war", Max jokes.
Taylor's Hitler is a German Everyman, still smarting with envy and frustration over the war. A vegetarian who neither drinks nor smokes, Hitler uses anger as a kind of narcotic. Lacking his trademark mustache but with a shaggy wave of hair and a face constantly contorted with rage, Taylor cuts a Brechtian figure, half cartoon and half demented artist, whose creative frenzy blooms only in public expression.
Cusack's Max is a remnant of a dying social order, blind to the threat in his friend's anti-Semitism. Max has genuine affection for this troubled artist, but Liselore sees Hitler for what he is and is repulsed by him. Ulrich Thomsen plays a German army officer who quietly battles Max for heart and mind of this potential leader.
The chilling notion promulgated in "Max" is that aspects of the modern movement in art and architecture work their way into the Nazi aesthetics. Art at least partially teaches Hitler ways to gain power through design and oratory. Witnessing Hitler sketch his new world order with its autobahns, uniforms and massive neo-classical buildings sends chills down the spine.
"Max" was shot in Hungary, which gives the production design an Eastern European look that works well for 1918 Munich. In the dilapidated buildings, the moody industrial gallery and the gold and brown tones in the Hapsburg interiors, one senses a revolution under way years before it actually happens.
MAX
Lions Gate Films
Lions Gate Films and Pathe present a JAP Films/AAMP/Natural Nylon II co-production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Menno Meyjes
Producers: Andras Hamori, Patricia Kruijer, Scott McLean
Executive producers: Jonathan Debin, Dietmar Guntsche, Eberhard Junkersdorf
Director of photography: Lajos Koltai
Production designer: Ben Van Os
Music: Dan Jones, Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Dien van Straalen
Editor: Chris Wyatt
Cast:
Max Rothman: John Cusack
Adolf Hitler: Noah Taylor
Liselore: Leelee Sobieski
Nina Rothman: Molly Parker
Capt Mayr: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
There will be those, of course, who cannot abide any attempt to humanize the 20th century's major villain. Yet in his directorial debut, Meyjes, who has written such films as "The Color Purple" and "The Siege", rewards adventurous filmgoers with a speculative fiction that makes connections and provokes ideas worth considering about the emotional makeup of this tyrant. Lions Gate has a solid art house entry in "Max", albeit one that needs very careful handling.
In exploring Hitler's flirtation with modernism and the notion, following the brutality of World War I, that art can energize the human spirit, Menno shows how art and politics fuse together in Hitler's mind: Politics, Hitler comes to believe, is the new art.
The story is of a fictional friendship between two war veterans in 1918 Munich. Hitler, played with mesmerizing intensity by Noah Taylor, is a ragged, emotionally scarred corporal who comes home to nothing save his art. Max Rothman, played by suave and worldly John Cusack, is a wealthy German Jew who becomes an art dealer when the war costs him his right arm and his own painting career.
Max fervently believes in the new art. In a vast factory he has turned into a gallery, Max exhibits paintings by George Grosz and other modernists -- the kind of art Hitler will one day label as "decadent." Max maintains a solid bourgeois facade with a loving wife (Molly Parker) and family yet maintains a mistress, an artist named Liselore (Leelee Sobieski), and acts as friend and mentor to struggling painters.
In Hitler, Max sees marginal artistic ability but recognizes a despair and passion that could fuel his art. Put that "pent-up stuff" on the canvas, he advises Hitler. But art must battle politics for Hitler's soul. He paints less and writes more. Despite his friendship with Max, a Jew, Hitler flirts with anti-Semitism, a kind of tired thinking Max labels as "kitsch."
But Hitler, who sees insults in everything and nurses grudges with perverse delight, cannot let go of a theory that so marvelously captures audience attention in his speeches. When Max's friends and especially Liselore react to Hitler's vulgarity, Max dismisses this. "He had a bad war", Max jokes.
Taylor's Hitler is a German Everyman, still smarting with envy and frustration over the war. A vegetarian who neither drinks nor smokes, Hitler uses anger as a kind of narcotic. Lacking his trademark mustache but with a shaggy wave of hair and a face constantly contorted with rage, Taylor cuts a Brechtian figure, half cartoon and half demented artist, whose creative frenzy blooms only in public expression.
Cusack's Max is a remnant of a dying social order, blind to the threat in his friend's anti-Semitism. Max has genuine affection for this troubled artist, but Liselore sees Hitler for what he is and is repulsed by him. Ulrich Thomsen plays a German army officer who quietly battles Max for heart and mind of this potential leader.
The chilling notion promulgated in "Max" is that aspects of the modern movement in art and architecture work their way into the Nazi aesthetics. Art at least partially teaches Hitler ways to gain power through design and oratory. Witnessing Hitler sketch his new world order with its autobahns, uniforms and massive neo-classical buildings sends chills down the spine.
"Max" was shot in Hungary, which gives the production design an Eastern European look that works well for 1918 Munich. In the dilapidated buildings, the moody industrial gallery and the gold and brown tones in the Hapsburg interiors, one senses a revolution under way years before it actually happens.
MAX
Lions Gate Films
Lions Gate Films and Pathe present a JAP Films/AAMP/Natural Nylon II co-production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Menno Meyjes
Producers: Andras Hamori, Patricia Kruijer, Scott McLean
Executive producers: Jonathan Debin, Dietmar Guntsche, Eberhard Junkersdorf
Director of photography: Lajos Koltai
Production designer: Ben Van Os
Music: Dan Jones, Zbigniew Preisner
Costume designer: Dien van Straalen
Editor: Chris Wyatt
Cast:
Max Rothman: John Cusack
Adolf Hitler: Noah Taylor
Liselore: Leelee Sobieski
Nina Rothman: Molly Parker
Capt Mayr: Ulrich Thomsen
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/11/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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