The Pillow Book
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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
Movie Review: Dreadful
Summary: 1 Stars
As an unabashed Ewan McGregor fan, I was eager to watch this movie. Even a young, charming and frequently nude Mr. McGregor could not redeem this film. I would rate this as one of the worst movies I have seen lately. While I find the premise interesting, the actual film itself is truly dreadful. I must agree with many previous reviewers with regards to their objections to the film. Vivian Wu as a Japanese woman? Bad idea. I missed several sequences of the movie due to white on white writing and other poorly mastered effects. The entire film was bizarre and disjointed. The few interesting and sensual scenes that involve the beautiful writing on the individual bodies do not make up for the overall displeasure I experienced while watching this movie. Movie Review: Classic Greenaway
Summary: 5 Stars
I have yet to meet the Peter Greenaway film I didn't like. He frames his scenes with extraordinary care and attention to detail, much like a painter. Without a doubt his films will take you places you have never been before. This film is no different. If you can relax and let this visual feast wash over you, then you are in for an unforgettable cinematic experience. I think an appreciation of the ritualistic aspects of fetishism and obsessiveness helps in understanding this film. Movie Review: Very, very strange
Summary: 3 Stars
This was without doubt a visually stunning film. It stunned all the senses as I didn't know what to make of much of it.
The main plot involving Ewan McGregor was very erotic although not as sensual as I had expected from other reviews. It was all just so very strange. It had a very modern-yet-retro Japanese feel that reminded me of the scene in "Lost in Translation" when Scarlett Johansson rescues Bill Murray from the strip bar.
I wasn't sure what my feelings toward the Ewan McGregor character of Jerome were. I didn't even know whether he was likable and yet he was Nigiko's lover. Or if I liked Vivian Wu for that matter. I found the chapters so confusing at first and the sex so distracting that I had to go back to the main menu and start the chapters over again and re-watch them.
After the second viewing I watched the rest of the film through to it's conclusion in a state of mixed shock, sadness, revulsion, and feelings I could not describe in words.
I don't know if I could recommend this as a film based on it's storytelling merits alone. The acting however is worth it. It's so hard to remember the fresh faced young actors as they were when they made this that it is enjoyable just to see how they've grown and changed over the years.
This is not a popcorn movie and not something you can walk away from without a heavy heart.
Movie Review: The Greatest Pleasures
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Pillow Book" is one of the most unusual films I've ever seen. Nagiko is the daughter of a calligrapher who develops a fetish for having people write on her. This leads her to want to become a published author using people's skin as the pages of her book. It's an unusual premise. As Nagiko, Vivian Wu is a driven and manipulative woman, willing to seduce at will to get what she wants. Some have labeled this film as erotic because of the great amount of nudity contained, but Peter Greenaway's aesthetic distance from his characters is great, resulting in a certain coldness or clinical eye with which he views the characters. Thus, it is not unusual to see reviewer reactions in which the nudity was not experienced as particularly moving or erotic; it just means that Greenaway's intention worked well. From Wales, Greenaway was trained as an artist; and his sense of the visual pervades this film. I particularly appreciated the way he overloads the visual information of the film by frequently having boxes within the frame showing another concurrent action or sometimes a flashback.
One of the original aspects of the film came for me when the first nude Japanese calligrapher runs around chasing Nagiko with a paintbrush. With a terrorist subplot, the police whisk in, swirl him away; and the film moves on. Ken Ogata as Nagiko's calligrapher father has a brief but intense appearance as does Hideko Yoshida as Nagiko's aunt. Yoshi Oida plays the gay publisher who ruins Nagiko's father and has a graphic relationship with a young expatriate Englishman named Jerome played by Ewan MacGregor. There are a lot of naked Asian and Caucasian men throughout the film, most appearing with writing on their bodies. Nagiko's books are quite creative. I particularly like the book of silence as the naked man stands there wordlessly until he sticks out his tongue upon which is written the brief message. Greenaway's cold eye toward the subjects is reflected as one of the books tumbles in the room revealing the last part of the anatomy that might usually remain hidden. MacGregor turns in a good performance hitting the highs of romance, a strange homosexual affair, and the final torture of rejection. While Greenaway employs about as much nudity as he did in telling Shakespeare's Tempest in "Prospero's Books," it does not seem to be the point of the film. Perhaps the point comes as we are told that two of the greatest pleasures are those of the written word and the flesh. Not much is made of the spiritual in this film; but it was with a mixed reaction that I viewed the Lord's Prayer painted on a naked Nagiko. This is a film for the more cinematically adventurous, but overall is a good viewing experience because it challenges how we view the world. Enjoy!