fbpx

SILK

What You Need To Know:

SILK is a lackluster historical drama set in France and Japan. Herve marries Helene but is immediately sent to find silkworm eggs because a disease is devastating the French silk industry. His trip to Africa fails, because the disease has already reached there. So, he sets off in 1862 for Japan. Japan is a closed country, so he has to be smuggled into the country. Herve falls in lust with the shogun’s concubine. He returns to France. Rather than appreciating his wife, who cannot conceive children, Herve looks forward to going back to Japan. He does so and has an affair. He returns to his dying wife, reconciles with her before she dies, but then returns to war-torn Japan, where things may not work out the way he wants.

SILK is so dull and languid that it could even destroy the silk futures market if anybody bothered to see it. The director is known for his visual poetry, but this time he lets the visuals overwhelm any poetry. The acting is so dull and off-putting that it is hard to watch the characters. Finally, SILK contains explicit sex and nudity.

Content:

(RoRoRo, V, SSS, NNN, A, D, MM) Very strong Romantic worldview, no spiritual insights whatsoever; no foul language; very tame threats of violence and action violence; depicted married sex, depicted adultery, depicted fornication, prostitution; upper and full female nudity, and upper and rear male nudity; drinking; smoking; and, lying, cheating, lust.

More Detail:

The reviewers have not been kind to SILK. Why? Because the movie is so dull, languid and off-putting that it could even destroy the silk futures market if anybody bothered to go see it.

Herve marries Helene and then is immediately sent to Africa to find silkworm eggs because a disease is devastating the French silk industry. His trip to Africa fails, because the disease has already reached the African silkworms. So, he sets off in 1862 to Japan, which takes months. Japan is a closed country, so he has to be smuggled into Japan blindfolded to a tiny village in the mountains to buy the silkworm eggs. Herve falls in lust with the main shogun’s concubine. He heads back to France and his beautiful wife who cannot conceive children.

Rather than appreciating his wife, Herve looks forward to going back to Japan. He does so, and on this trip has a very explicit affair with the concubine. He returns to his dying wife, reconciles with her before she dies and goes back to Japan. Japan is in the midst of wars and rumors of wars, and things may not work out the way he wants.

Some of the scenery in SILK is beautiful but discussing it with other reviewers who have been to some of these places in the movies just as I have, we wondered why the scenery had nothing to do with the place being described. That is, there are no mountains around Kiev, Ukraine. The mountains in Japan do not look like the Japanese mountains in this movie. In fact, the whole movie looks like a stylized figment of the director’s imagination. From his past work, he has been known to be a visual poet. This time he lets the visuals overwhelm any poetry.

The acting is so dull and off-putting that it is hard to watch the characters. One reviewer was playing on his iPhone while watching the movie and yet didn’t miss a beat or a line. The full nudity and sex scenes are so blasé that they are induce lethargy too. The best part about SILK is it will make very little money at the box office and thus help bring down the averages for Romantic movies, movies with a non-Christian worldview and movies with explicit sex and nudity.