How does the average person approach Greenaway without writing his work off as pretentious? The most obvious answer is that they probably can't. Greenaway's films are not intended as "entertainment" for a wide audience, nor to be watched and forgotten. His last few films require a great deal of sustained concentration and patience which, unfortunately, is the domain of a small and shrinking group of people as cinema-goers lose the ability to maintain focus. I recall seeing Prospero's Books on its initial release at Melbourne's beautiful single screen cinema palace, The Astor Theatre, to a packed house, seating just over a thousand people. Once the film started barely five minutes had elapsed before the first patrons began exiting the cinema. By the time the film was halfway through there were half a dozen bodies left in the cavernous theatre. I confess that this first screening was hard work for me and my friends, who slogged it out until the end. I have since had the pleasure of studying the film at University in a "Shakespeare in Adaptation" class that I found especially rewarding. Greenaway's use of various spectacular though distancing cinematic devices — sumptuously busy mise-en-scene, multiple overlapping screens, long takes, minimal character movement, competing narrative devices, and the use of Sir John Gielgud as the sole voice, perform not only Prospero but the dialogue of all the other characters — is ingenious and becomes increasingly so with repeat watches. But beware: that first screening verges on punishing. Viewers new to the film might be helped to know that it is an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the final play before the playwright left London, and it seems fitting that Gielgud was cast in the role of Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan who was betrayed by his brother and cast adrift with his daughter Miranda on a boat which found its was to an island full of mysterious unseen sprites. Through studying a series of mysterious books, Prospero learns to control and command the phantasmic denizens of the island (the many unclothed extras in Greenaway's film), who do his bidding. Some scholars contend that Prospero is based on Shakespeare himself and his control of the wraithlike beings represent the playwright reflecting on his own inventions. It makes sense then that Gielgud plays the role of all the characters, controlling them all even as he sits in his study outside of the action scribing the story while simultaneously inhabiting the play as one its characters. Only when Prospero forgives his shipwrecked brother for his act of treachery and the world is set right are the other actors' voices finally heard. Once you get past Greenaway's various tricks and stylistic flourishes, his adaptation becomes deeply moving, assisted by Michael Nyman's hypnotic score. As a matter of interest, another wonderful film based on Shakespeare's The Tempest is the 1956 Fred M. Wilcox-directed science fiction spectacular, Forbidden Planet, which stars Officer Frank Drebin himself, Leslie Neilsen and the amazing humanoid robot fondly known as Robbie the Robot. Walter Pigeon plays the Prospero character whose study of the ancient technology of a lost civilisation on the planet has given him incredible powers to conjure monsters from his imagination.

On the first sight this is one of numerous attempts to make a Shakespeare movie. Yes, it looks rather like a spectacle than a film. First impression is that it is a very-very strange movie. Actors are deliberately artificial. Make up is intentionally thick. Gestures are exaggerated. People are silent. You hear music and reader's voice. I thought watching it - what's it exactly? A try to say a new word on a topic which is equal to four hundred years?.. Try to say a new word of it, just try, okay.Time passed. Several years.By the time a new adaptation of 'Tempest' appeared, with Helen Mirren as Prospero. And what's the matter? I found that I can not watch another 'Tempest' shot by any other director. All of them look like wrong, WEAK and stupid. All of them look like fakes. (I love Helen Mirren, I adore her works and her appearance in every film is welcomed by me. But not in 'Tempest' - and it is not her fault.)Wow, I thought, what a surprise! The movie by Peter Greenaway - for me - is the Best 'Tempest' I have ever seen - and I'm afraid - I will ever see. It is so right as it can be. The text is a pure contradictory fantasy of the poet and Mr. Greenaway makes it into reality, breathes a life into it showing it with all means which do not offer ready images for us and, on the contrary, he turns a spectator's imagination on and involves us into a game with images. Do you know such another director or another film which makes it with a spectator? It is closer to a real Globe staging. It is a miracle. And it is a fantastic masterpiece. Do I recommend it to everyone? I don't. It is very-very specific. It is not for everyone. Just like something collectible, something valuable, rare and fragile. Something you would prefer not to show for everyone not to break an atmosphere around it. And it takes several years to understand what it really IS. Just like in life ... when you live and do something whatever, and then several years later you suddenly catch your thought that it was a happiest time in your life. So this film is something of that kind (for me). You may understand what it IS not immediately after watching.

An exiled magician finds an opportunity for revenge against his enemies muted when his daughter and the son of his chief enemy fall in love in this uniquely structured retelling of "The Tempest".I am not sure how much this relies on or strays from "The Tempest", because frankly it is not a play I am terribly familiar with. That probably hinders my ability to critique this film. I suspect the original is not written with pervasive nudity in mind, which I found interesting (and not the least bit distracting).The version I watched was on DVD, but was clearly an awful transfer, possibly from a VHS tape. That is a shame, because the visuals seemed stunning, yet blurred. A better transfer might make me rethink the film ,and probably bump it up a notch or two.

I'm sorry, I have to agree with the bottom feeders on this one. This film is just utter visual crap on a pile of fertilizer. I mean the opening shot is pretty insulting, and not for the feint of heart. Good to know cherubs can perform bodily functions on a swing. And right at the camera no less.I'm reminded of "Hollywood Shuffle", and Robert Townsend's take off the then famous Siske-n-Ebert duo. In Townsend's vignette the two "brothers" rate movies with thumbs up and thumbs down just like Siskel and Ebert. They even give one movie they like the "serious high-five"! Ah, but for the one movie they didn't like? "We give dis movie, the FINGER!"Ayup, and that's kind of how I feel about this scatter brained, ill- conceived, slop-artist hack effort.Oh man, I don't know, this thing reminds me of some of Rob Nilsson's investigative films, only I have no idea what real world crime is being put to the audience, other than the travesty that is this movie.Shakespeare it ain't. Avoid like a pack rabid zombie dogs!