The Pillow Book [DVD] [1996]

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

4:3
DVD 9
English
Region 2
Dolby Surround English
Dolby Surround

In Kyoto, Japan, in the 1970s, a calligrapher delicately writes a birthday greeting on his daughter's face. When she grows up, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) remembers the event with much affection and excitement and begins a search for an ideal calligrapher-lover who will use her whole body as his personal paper.

After much unfulfilled searching, she meets Jerome (Ewan MacGregor), an English translator, who convinces her that she should be then pen and not the paper. She should write on his body and he will deliver her manuscripts, on his skin, to a publisher.

However, the plan works too well and jealousy begins to rip through their passionate relationship with dramatic and devastating effect.