The Pillow Book
by Peter Greenaway
List Price:
Our Price: $13.70
You Save: $11.26 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $10.00 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ewan McGregor, Hideko Yoshida, Ken Ogata, Vivian Wu, Yoshi OidaDirector: Peter Greenaway
Brand: WU,VIVAIN
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Japanese (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 126 minutes
Published: 1998-12-01
DVD Release Date: 1998-12-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Product features:
- home goods
Movie Reviews of The Pillow Book
Movie Review: Transcending Artificial Cultural Divides
Summary: 5 Stars
Pillow Book is a surreal, highly sensual, and thought provoking movie. With an almost unreal quality I began to ponder the possibility of the movie. Vivian Wu captures the audience her more than in the "The Joy Luck Club" and the "Soong Sisters." Those of us in the west never stop to consider the aesthetic quality of our letter - our writing. Notably, calligraphy is the subject of many movies. For certain, not many have taken Peter Greenaway approach. Greenaway fused the pleasure of literature and the flesh like never before. I am almost reminded of In the Realm of the Senses... almost.
Nagiko is at the center of the movie. Nagiko is Japanese-born fashion model with a passion for calligraphy, physical pleasure, and revenge and not in that order. Nagiko, as a child; her father - played by Ken Ogata, a calligrapher, body painter on his daughter a blessing on her face and neck every birthday. Nagiko learns that her father, to get published, he has to surrender to homosexual relations with the publisher - played by Yoshi Oida. This same publisher arranges for Nagiko to marry a cruel man who views her as object. Nagiko eventually flees Japan for Hong Kong, where she jettisons to a whole new life.
Like In the Realm of the Senses there was no shortage of full frontal nudity. Vivian Wu (Soong Sisters, The Joy Luck Club) and Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) for the better part of the movie are without any clothes on. No matter what though, even with the staid poses the movie seemed highly charged and very, very erotic. The pictures-in-pictures technique is one that is rarely seen but also extreme successful. Another bit that needs to be mentioned is the fusing of the Japanese and Chinese cultures - almost making the movie a regional rather than a local movie - one can't help but find that exploration fascinating. The color bleeding into black-and-white posed yet another intriguing visual technique. All the scenes seemed larger than life - Greenaway has a curious way of elevating what on the surface is everyday to moving it into a realm of event.
Reference to the Pillow Book is setup when Nagiko's aunt would read her shorts from the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon - the 1000-year old diary of a courtesan. While in Hong Kong, Nagiko decides to write her own pillow book - not on paper, however, but rather on her body. Nagiko's we learn rather early on is on a quest is for the perfect lover/calligrapher combo. Jerome (Ewan McGregor), after a long search proves to be her artistic match, and also offers the route ala Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo to wake up a long-dormant plan of revenge against her father's cruel and unfeeling publisher.
Despite all the criticism, whatever the shortcoming of the film it is something we have seen before and nothing we have never really seen before. The great incongruity of this film, which is (at least on the surface) about the power of writing, is that the words take the back seat to the visual feast. The camera becomes the medium and the message.
Miguel Llora
Summary of The Pillow Book
No description available.Genre: Foreign Video - Chinese
Rating: UN
Release Date: 0000-00-00
Media Type: DVD
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 tantalizing 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 realizes that although he is a magnificent lover, his penmanship is less than acceptable. When Nagiko dismisses the enamored 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
Similar DVD Movies
I Love You Phillip MorrisLGF; Release date: 2011-04-05; DVD
Best price: $8.22
Price in other shops:
The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)Fox; Release date: 2004-07-13; DVD
Best price: $4.09
Price in other shops:
The Draughtsman's ContractZeitgeist Films; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $10.68
Price in other shops:
Baby of MaconRelease date: 2011-04-29; DVD
Best price: $19.99
The Belly of an ArchitectTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2004-06-15; Published: 2004-06-01; DVD
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
9 songs - Unrated Full Uncut VersionGPI; Release date: 2005-11-22; DVD
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops:
Prospero's BooksAllied Artists Classics; Release date: 2009-09-18; Published: 2007; DVD
Best price: $39.99
Price in other shops:
Nightwatching (Two Disc Special Edition)Koch International; Release date: 2009-09-15; DVD
Best price: $11.15
Price in other shops:
Velvet GoldmineBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 1999-05-18; DVD
Best price: $8.02
Price in other shops:
Young AdamRelease date: 2004-09-14; Published: 2004-09-01; DVD
Best price: $16.99
Price in other shops: