- Actors: Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor, Yoshi Oida, Ken Ogata, Hideko Yoshida
- Directors: Peter Greenaway
- Writers: Peter Greenaway, Sei Shonagon
- Producers: Denis Wigman, Jean-Louis Piel, Jessinta Liu, Kees Kasander, Terry Glinwood
- Format: PAL
- Language English
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Vci
- DVD Release Date: 16 Jun 2003
- Run Time: 126 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CZOM
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 52,566 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers) continues to delight and disturb us with his talent for combining storytelling with optic artistry. The Pillow Book is divided into 10 chapters (consistent with Greenaway's love of numbers and lists) and is shot to be viewed like a book, complete with tantalising illustrations and footnotes (subtitles) and using television's "screen-in-screen" technology. As a child in Japan, Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt reads a list of "beautiful things" from a 10th-century pillow book. As she gets older, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) looks for a lover with calligraphy skills to continue the annual ritual. She is initially thrilled when she encounters Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a bisexual translator who can speak and write several languages, but soon realises that although he is a magnificent lover, his penmanship is less than acceptable. When Nagiko dismisses the enamoured Jerome, he suggests she use his flesh as the pages which to present her own pillow book. The film, complete with a musical score as international as the languages used in the narration, is visually hypnotic and truly an immense "work of art". --Michele Goodson
Special Features
4:3
DVD 9
English
Region 2
Dolby Surround English
Dolby Surround
DVD 9
English
Region 2
Dolby Surround English
Dolby Surround
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gorgeous film, terrible edition,
By
This review is from: The Pillow Book [DVD] [1996] (DVD)
I didn't check the aspect ratio (4:3!) when I bought the DVD. I had it already on tape, and the copy kept the original ratio. How can anybody do such a stupid thing as cutting off the edges of a film that is all about frames and pictorical composition? The film, originally, is a masterpiece.
45 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Finely Created Work of Art,
By
This review is from: The Pillow Book [DVD] [1996] (DVD)
I happen to be a great admirer of the controversial Mr Greenaway. I think his direction in film is bold and produces powerful results. The Pillow Book is a great example of this talent. It is an amazing combination of his narrative technique, experimental explorations and talent for finding compelling stories. The images are beautiful, especially the shot of Vivian Wu standing in the rain covered with writing on her flesh which slowly melts away. Her character is not that complex, but the action of the story is sufficient to carry her along throughout the tale as she fights for independence and a suitable form of artistic expression. Essentially the story is about the fetishisation of books and sex. These things are enough to make a great movie in my mind. Nagiko is a girl who goes through a ritual where her father writes on her back on her birthday as he tells her of a myth. After burning her way out of a suffocating marriage, she grows up to become a radical artist writing on bodies and searching for a man who can replace her father in the birthday tradition. She meets a talented man named Jerome who she falls in love with, but is eventually sacrificed to her father's old enemy. In the course of the narrative she writes her own Pillow Book on a series of men. It culminates in a gruesome act of jealousy and revenge (a notion not foreign to Greenaway's narratives). Some emotionally intense scenes are made particularly powerful with the screen-in-screen shots because it shows at one time the levels between thought and action, self-perception and actual action. This is a new style for Greenaway that works tremendously well in this movie because it fits so perfectly with the egotism and self-obsession of the characters involved. The movie as a whole is a powerful evocation of a great Japanese classic. I highly recommend this movie who is in the mood to watch something eccentric, visually moving and stunningly beautiful.
32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic DVD, but loses a lot from theatrical presentation,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Pillow Book [DVD] [1996] (DVD)
This is a fantastic DVD, the sounds and picture quality are great. However, the movie contains many pictures within pictures (like windows on a computer screen) that looked fantastic on the big screen but many of these smaller pictures have been awkwardly cut off for the DVD version. It's a shame. The movie is still great and worth watching. And Greenaway outdoes himself for coming up with something even creepier than the 'buffet' scene from Thief, Cook, Wife and her Lover.
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