SOURCE: Bird, Nathaniel. Review of Prospero's Books, by Peter Greenaway. Films in Review 43, nos. 1–2 (January–February 1992): 49–50.

In the following review, Bird praises the stunning visuals of Prospero's Books, but acknowledges that the film may be inaccessible to most audiences.

One thing must be said about Peter Greenaway: he is unique among today's filmmakers. While most of America is content to watch not only the same film genres over and over (a spate of age-reversal films, back-to-the-past films, science-fiction westerns, undersea horror, etc.) but, worse, the continuation of the same film over and over (The Godfather Part III, or Die Hard II, or Star Trek VI, or Rocky 17), only Greenaway can be depended on to present the unexpected.

With his first work to attract a sizable audience, The Draughtsman's Contract, he crafted a drawing room thriller of marvelous beauty and intricacy. More recently, he added to the MPAA ratings...