The Pillow Book

Just because a movie looks good, it does not mean it is good. Just because it is filled with erudition, it does not mean it has any cultural or artistic value. It must have something to say, and say it in a consistent manner. That is what distinguishes great art from phony art. "The pillow book" is not great art, it is not art at all. Its main subject is about writing on people's bodies. It insists on having a plot, although it seems to constantly remind us that it is not a conventional melodrama, but a pictorial essay. In fact it does not work either as a melodrama or as an abstract construction. Its meretricious efforts are a sad evidence of a certain "anything goes" quality that pervades much of the noncommercial post-60s cinema that bloomed amidst the disillusionment with the increasing infantilization of the Hollywood mainstream films. Madness, it is known, begets madness.

Like many of Peter Greenaway's movies, Pillow Book features extensive nudity. However, while the plot development is well worked out, the cast is competent, and Greenaway shows off a dazzling array of cinematic techniques, he always seems to approach his material too intellectually to really engage the viewer's emotions. I cannot know his intentions, but my impression is that he regards his scripts as more akin to a complex mathematical puzzle to be worked out than a story about real people with human feelings, leaving the movie worth watching but curiously cool and clinical rather than passionately erotic.

A difficult but beautiful film that treats of love, sex, betrayal, revenge, and a young woman's attempt to control her own creative process. Best understood as a visual diary (the "pillow book" of the title), but it does have a plot, if one pays close attention. Nagiko, the protagonist, struggles to become a writer through her relationships with three men who, in different ways, personify her muse: her late father, a writer; her father's publisher, who coerced her father into sex as the price of publication; and Jerome, the attractive young English translator who is the publisher's current lover and her own. This film will repay multiple viewings, however fractured its treatment of Japanese language and culture.

At the beginning of the film we see a little girl being written upon by her father. The film then moves to the girl as an adult, and seeking lovers who will write on her body again. She meets a bisexual Englishman, who also likes to be written on, and she finds out he is also a former lover of a man who has previously betrayed her father.

Greenaway uses some of the techniques from Prospero's Books, in the way the film is shown, with small rectangular boxes containing other images. The film is beautiful to look at, as per usual with Greenaway's films. There is also a seductive French song that plays at times during the film, a sensuous lady performs this tune, and it is very appropriate to the film. The film is erotic, with plenty of nudity on view. I do think the film is a bit languid at times though, and this hurts it, but it's still an impressive piece of cinema.

This is a beautiful movie visually, but you need to keep concentrating on what is happening. Don't ask why too much with this - the effect of actions is reason enough to take them. Vivan Wu is very good, as is Ewan McGregor, in a different role for him. It reminds you also of what are some of the best things about Japan, and what are some of the worst things about men. Well worth buying the DVD and watching over and over.