The Pillow Book

Plot synopsis:
The film's title, "The Pillow Book", refers to an ancient Japanese diary written by Sei Shōnagon, actual name believed to be Kiyohara Nagiko, from whence the protagonist's name in the film.
The film is narrated by Nagiko, a Japanese born model living in Hong Kong. Nagiko seeks a lover who can match her desire for carnal pleasure with her admiration for poetry and calligraphy. The roots of this obsession lie in her youth in Kyoto, when her father would write characters of good fortune on her face. 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 Sei Shōnagon's Pillow Book. Nagiko's aunt tells her that when she is twenty-eight years old, the official book of observations will be officially 1000 years old, and that she, Nagiko, will be the same age as Sei Shōnagon when she had written the book (in addition to sharing her first name). Nagiko also learns around this time that her father is in thrall to his publisher, "Yaji-san", who demands sexual favours from her father in exchange for publishing his work.
=== Early chapters ===
The publisher arranges Nagiko's wedding to his young apprentice. Her husband, an expert archer, resents Nagiko's love for books and her desire to read, in spite of his apprenticeship. He also refuses to indulge in her desires for pleasure, refusing to write on her body. When he discovers and reads Nagiko's pillow book, he is extremely resentful, setting it on fire and thus setting fire to their marital home, an event which Nagiko describes to be the 'first major fire of [her] life.' Insulted and enraged, Nagiko leaves him for good.
Hiding from her husband, Nagiko moves to Hong Kong. In spite of her aversion to the practice, she learns how to type to find work. Outside her apartment, a group of activists regularly protest the publishing industry for the depletion of forests due to the need to make paper.
After working as a secretary in the office of a Japanese fashion designer for a while, Nagiko's employer takes a liking to her and makes her one of his models. As a successful fashion model, Nagiko hires a maid, as she now finally has the opportunity to explore her sexual desires of being written on. However, after several affairs, she feels dissatisfied with them all: either they have great penmanship and are lousy lovers, or vice versa.
One day, at the Cafe Typo, Nagiko's favourite haunt, she meets Jerome, a British translator. Intrigued by his knowledge, they go to a private space where she has Jerome write on her body in various languages. In spite of her interest, Nagiko dislikes Jerome's handwriting and orders him out. Jerome totally shocks Nagiko, however, when he asks her to teach him, offering her to write on his body. Opening his shirt, he offers Nagiko to "Use my body like the pages of a book. Of your book!". Nagiko has never considered this aspect in her desires before: her lovers always write on her body. When she backs out and runs, Jerome laughs at her.
Frightened but very intrigued by Jerome's suggestion, Nagiko has several one-night stands in which she experiments writing on their bodies. One of the activists, admirer Hoki, a Japanese photographer who adores her, begs Nagiko to take him as a lover. She explains she can't, as his skin's no good for writing: whenever she writes on him, the ink smears and runs. Hoki, not wanting Nagiko to keep carrying on like she is, suggests she try writing a book, offering to take it to a renowned publisher he freelances for. Nagiko likes this idea and writes her first book.
Nagiko's book is returned, being told the book is "not worth the paper it's written on!". Insulted, Nagiko follows the address on the envelope to confront the publisher. Nagiko is shocked to discover that the publisher who rejected her work is in fact Yaji-san, her father's old publisher. What's more, the publisher has a young lover: Jerome.
Devising a plan, Nagiko decides that she will get to the publisher through Jerome. Meeting up with Jerome again, Nagiko discovers he has learned a few more languages, and his penmanship has greatly improved. Nagiko and Jerome spend several weeks exploring this, writing on each other and making love. Nagiko soon realises that, in Jerome, she has found the perfect lover she has been searching for: the partner with whom she can share her physical and her poetic passion, using each other's bodies as tablets for their art.
=== Writing of books 1 – 6 ===
Nagiko tells Jerome the truth and the whole story with the publisher. Jerome comes up with an idea: Nagiko will write her book on Jerome's body and Jerome will take it to the publisher. Nagiko loves the idea, and writes Book 1: The Book of The Agenda, in intricate characters of black, red, and gold, on Jerome, keeping her identity anonymous. The plan is a success: Jerome sees the publisher and exhibits the book on his nude body, and the impressed publisher has his scriveners copy down the text.
After telling Nagiko of the plan's success, Jerome tells Nagiko that he'll return to her as soon as the publisher, who was extremely aroused by the experience, lets him go. However, during his time with the publisher, Jerome appears to lose track of time and doesn't return to Nagiko. Nagiko, jealous, impatient, and angry, searches for Jerome, eventually finding him making love with the publisher. Nagiko takes this as rejection and betrayal of the worst kind, and immediately plots revenge.
On two Swedish tourists, Nagiko writes Book 2: The Book of The Innocent and Book 3: The Book of the Idiot. Shortly afterwards, an old man is running naked through the streets from the publisher's shop, bearing Book 4: The Book of Impotence/Old Age. Book 5: The Book of the Exhibitionist is delivered by a boorish, fat, hyperactive American (Tom Kane; who was actually more interested in Hoki than Nagiko).
Nagiko's revenge is a success. Jerome is furiously jealous, and comes to Nagiko's home to confront her. Nagiko refuses to meet him, however, and won't let Jerome in. Jerome's outrage soon turns to desperation as he begs her to talk to him, but she won't.
Jerome sinks into deep depression and meets with Hoki at the Cafe Typo, desperate to find a way to get Nagiko to forgive him. Hoki suggests that he "scare" Nagiko by faking suicide, similar to the fake death scene in Romeo and Juliet and gives Jerome some pills.
Arriving at Nagiko's home while she is away, Jerome takes some of the pills, then writes a page, as if writing a book. Each time he takes some pills, he writes another page, keeping track of how many pills he takes on each page. As the pills take effect, Jerome can write no more and lies on the bed, naked, holding a copy of Sei Shōnagon's the book of observations.
The plan is a success: when Nagiko returns home and finds Jerome, she rushes to him, eager to renew their relationship and continue their plans. However, the plan has worked too well: Jerome has overdosed on the pills and is dead. Nagiko is devastated, and realises how much she loved him. On his dead body, Nagiko writes Book 6: The Book of the Lovers.
At Jerome's funeral, his mother, a snobbish, upper-class woman, tells Nagiko that Jerome always loved things that were "fashionable". When she suggests that was probably why Jerome loved Nagiko, Nagiko strikes her.
After the funeral, the publisher secretly exhumes Jerome's body from the tomb and has Jerome's skin, still bearing the writing, flayed and made into a grotesque pillow book of his own. Nagiko, now back in Japan, learns of the publisher's actions and becomes distraught and outraged. She sends a letter to the publisher, still keeping her identity a secret, demanding that particular book from the publisher's hands in exchange for the remaining books. The publisher, now obsessed with his mysterious writer and her work, agrees.
=== Writing of books 7 – 13 ===
Nagiko, now pregnant with Jerome's child, writes Book 7: The Book of The Seducer on a male messenger. The writing on him is almost destroyed and undecipherable when the publisher accidentally leaves the messenger out in the rain. Book 8: The Book of Youth is delivered as a series of photographs. A young Buddhist monk then arrives bearing Book 9: The Book of Secrets written on all his "secret" spots: in between his fingers and toes, the insides of his thighs, etc.; the book is presented in the form of riddles. When the next messenger arrives, he is completely bare: no writing at all. The publisher and staff search for any hint of writing on the messenger's naked body. As the publisher dismisses him as a hoax, the man sticks out his tongue, bearing Book 10: The Book of Silence.
The activists' protests come to an end when their truck hits a young wrestler bearing Book 11: The Book of The Betrayed, right outside the publisher's office. The next messenger (Masaru Matsuda) simply drives by the office, giving little time to copy down Book 12: The Book of False Starts.
Finally, Book 13: The Book of the Dead arrives on the body of a Sumo wrestler. In the book writing on the body of the messenger, which the publisher carefully reads, Nagiko finally reveals her identity, confronting the publisher with his crimes: blackmailing and disgracing her father, "corrupting" her husband, as well as Jerome, and what he's done to Jerome's corpse. The publisher, greatly shamed and humbled by being confronted with his guilt, hands the pillow book made of Jerome's skin to the messenger, then has the messenger slit his throat.
Upon recovering the book made out of Jerome's skin, Nagiko buries it under a Bonsai tree and life goes on. She has given birth to Jerome's child, and is shown in the epilogue writing on her child's face, like her father used to do when she was young, and quoting from her own pillow book. It is now Nagiko's 28th birthday.
Nagiko's bi-cultural heritage plays a key role in this film. As a half-Chinese and half-Japanese woman, Nagiko navigates her dual cultures through physical and psychological exploration. Greenaway portrays this exploration subtly by mixing and switching Asian iconography.

Tags: dark, murder, psychedelic, autobiographical, romantic, revenge

Review:
Based loosely on the tenth century writings of the imperial court observer, Sei Shonagon, Greenaway brings to the screen a rich visual amalgam that relies on stunning settings, the physical beauty of actors Vivian Wu and Ewan McGregor, and the joy of ancient and modern systems of writing that are the calligraphic arts.
Inspired by the opportunity to obtain revenge on the publisher who blackmailed her father and is Jerome's lover, Wu's character, Nagiko creates the ultimate love poem illuminated in red, gold and black characters and delivered to the publisher on the naked body of Jerome.
It is a story that revels in the binaries of the profane and grotesque, yet delights the eye with Greenaway's ability to translate a vision of love and horror into a singular statement of lush physical beauty and passionate sexuality..
The way it is filmed is pure art,  like the unfolding of the pages of the book it's about.
Like many of Peter Greenaway's movies, Pillow Book features extensive nudity.
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..
I know that sounds odd, but believe me, I'm a very conservative individual/artist.But that's not The Film -- the plot is intriguing, the Art is breathtaking, and the calligraphy, ahhhhhhh, is astoundingly beautiful, especially when transcribed on human form.
I don't understand one character in Japanese calligraphy but the idea of writing a poem or a prayer or a story on human skin is certainly an original one.
I couldn't force myself to watch '8 1/2 Women' which was my first Greenway film, so I hoped against my better judgment that this movie would be different -- and it was.
Avoid at all costs!The overlapping 'split screen' effects do nothing more than confuse, the film is very dark for a lot of the time and the 'artistic' composing of images is pretentious in the extreme.There is absolutely nothing to recommend about this film; even the nudity is incredibly unerotic, which seeing it fills a large part of the film soon gets very boring.Plus, how anyone can say that the acting of Ewen MacGregor is brilliant is beyond me.
This was my first Peter Greenaway movie and OK so I went to see ALL of Ewan Macgregor but it had other rewards.It's in three parts: the first is the complicated set-up to the story line.
Also the nude bodies were chosen to be good calligraphic canvases and not to be distractingly erotic or well-toned so do just become background (only a British director would do that).The third part is the gripper - turning the movie into Mythic Story and raising it several notches of visual images and themes.
Ewan McGregor, playing an English translator in Hong Kong, has a love affair with a Japanese woman with a very curious fetish: writing in fine Japanese calligraphy the body of her lovers.
The movie is very silly, but is sort of watchable (the obvious beauty of Vivian Wu, who plays the Japanese lover and appears naked several times - as does McGregor - certainly helps).
And such a small delicate woman.While there were some awkward moments revealing the immaturity of the female lead and some disgusting circumstances propelling her toward revenge, in all, I have to rate this movie excellent for the editing, camera, story, and high impact acting.
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.
You should see this film if you think about communicating by image -- you won't find more beauty and recursive visual depth anywhere else.There are a few flaws in my mind, notable only because the film is so remarkable and because Greenaway shoots so high.
So that people will watch who wouldn't otherwise get it?I wish Greenaway played more with contrasting ritual with spontaneity, especially since the Japan/Hong Kong cultural contrast, the publishing versus modeling contrast (permanent versus faddish), and the promiscuous lovers versus the honored parents all set things up so well.
Her breasts her new pillowbook?If you liked this film, you'll like the book: `Life: a User's Manual' (Perec) which works the same territory but has a better sense of how to come to an end.
I am sure it has something to do with art, but it beats the hell out of me what.The movie is about a young Chinese woman named Nagiko, played by Vivian Wu (Joy Luck Club) who has had calligraphy painted on her body since she was a little girl.
There is some kind of homo erotic thing with a Japanese editor but don't know why he is there or what his purpose is but hey, whatever.Um, I guess the writer and director, Peter Greenaway, has some reason for putting this book onto film.
There appears to be no other point to this movie, what do nude bodies look like with paint on them and what does it mean?
Peter Greenaway has written and directed two of the worst movies ever put on film, The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, and this movie, all though for different reasons.
There is a massive difference between the two, and it effects the review of this film.If viewed as a movie, this film is pretentious, over-visualized, non-plotted...and VERY slow and boring.
One is merely thrown into their story, and who can really care for a nit-wit of a girl with a fettish for body art, or a man who is overly vain, sells himself for what he wants, and basically plays games with the people he loves?
Mere "scribbling" becomes astounding and moving--such as the Lord's Prayer written upon Nagiko's body.The film also includes a cold sense of revenge by way of the Publisher.
While the visuals are interesting, as well as the chosen soundtrack, they probably appeal only to ..you guessed it, artistic people.The film has it all: fetish, emotionally unstable girl confusing sex with art, sports maniac husband abusing wife, Ewan McGregor naked, Vivian Wu naked (although I found her highly unattractive), pathetic geeks drooling over her, etc.
I've just finished watching The Pillow Book, and I can honestly say that there have been few times when I've hated a movie this much.
In the Peter Greenaway quotes section there is a statement of his that called my attention: "If you want to tell stories, be a writer, not a filmmaker." To that I would reply: If you just want to make pretty images, be a painter, not a filmmaker.I thought this movie had very interesting visuals, but it seemed more like a moving collage than a movie.
One quick glance at the quotes in Peter Greenaway's biography on this site will tell you all you need to know about this film - a smug, up itself mess with ideas way above it's station.I must admit I was intrigued during the first 15 minutes or so, just what was I watching here, seemed original and somewhat interesting to begin with.
But talk about over-doing it, we get basic repetition of scenes merely for the sake of it and it becomes very tiresome VERY quickly.Plus we get the director's absurd fascination with Ewan McGregor's manhood, Greenaway seemingly living his own fantasies through an elderly Japanese publisher, who gets his way with Jerome on an all too regular basis for it just to be a plot device.Don't expect narrative progression by the way, this is a rebellion against the filmic medium, this is art, this is the structured pictures of a painter.
The minimal (by today's standards) violence in the film was justified by the plot.But I fear Mr. Greenaway missed a the opportunity to make a really good film (given its specialized nature I think there's no way it could have been "great") by indulging in "arty" effects (the maddening inset frames; white subtitles on off-white backgrounds enough to give the viewer a headache; pointless and repetitive switching back to the thousand-year-old model for the "pillow book"--pointless in that the words of the original writer hold scarcely any relevance for the experience of the self-indulgent, spoiled modern protagonist: shared nationality alone is not enough to forge a spiritual or artistic bond).I applaud the director's decision to thumb his nose at the absurd, puritanical (and hypocritical) taboo against total nudity, especially rife in my own nation, and apt to remain so for as long as the country itself survives.
Or films like "Shower," "The Son's Room," or "Mostly Martha," with their subtle and profound probing of human relationships carried out with the use of simple, honest dramatic means.I could only give this movie a vote of "three."  I wish it deserved at least a seven.
However it was his usual mix of "art" sex and pretentious crap.I know lots of people like this film but I grew tired of it VERY quickly.
The Japanese actually spoken in several places is unnatural, and the English subtitles are often incorrect (i.e. mixing up the 7th and 8th books, etc).If fidelity to native cultures is not an issue for you, however, The Pillow Book is enticing, with the hallmarks of a Greenaway film--sumptuous visuals, original treatment, weak storyline.
To me, everything about this movie is phoney, starting with the title as the film is not based on the famous Pillow Book.
The storyhas a few English characters [Jerome -Ewan McGregor] -withmainly Japanese actors, who make up the basic reason for thestory about  -a daughter's revenge, [Nagiko] against a homosexualPublisher, who had been using his power -that of choosing certainworks to publish- not just on merit -but for sexual favours.
The plot of "The Pillow Book" is very original; it shows a lot of nudes, written bodies and flashy ways to write on skin.
A comical music has nothing to do with this movie, since it's a drama and artistic movie, which makes people think.This is a very original movie, I'd have never thought of a story like "The Pillow Book".
For instance when Jerome is dead, the old man cuts his skin, and begins kissing it, which I consider farfetched and unbelievably pointless.I'd recommend this movie because of its interpretability and originality, nevertheless if you consider frontal nudity and some sex scenes rude or offensive, do not watch it, because you'll be extremely disturbed, otherwise try to know what an Art movie can do!
These few words are not meant in judgment, but to point out what I found intriguing in `Pillow Book'--the use of calligraphy, passion, and a creation story.
I expected too much about this Greenaway's film though I like some beautiful scenes.
( Actually it doesn't look Hong Kong too........) I think the director just picked up something "exotic" and "oriental' from the image of "the pillow book" from the western point of view.
But there are some scenes that seems to be too experimental, and it makes the whole story complex to understand.I recommend you to see this film, if you want to enjoy Ewan MacGregor's good acting, and exciting filmwork!.
She is obsessed with having artists write on her skin and she draws her feelings on others.Peter Greenaway's use of picture in picture images is a distracting device and the plot is fairly simplistic with Nagiko's search for partners willing to use her body as a canvas, even to the point of having the "Our Father" drawn onto her arm, chest and stomach; this is a very off-beat tale which features frequent nudity, both male and female.
In that film, Greenaway takes his deep love of catalog form to an outrageous extreme, subjecting the audience to 120 timed, 60-second multiple views of staircases in Geneva.
The film's main character, Nagiko (played by the fabulously beautiful and intriguing Vivian Wu), has grown up with a writer for a father.
This is not the more easily likable Wife played by Helen Mirren in "The Cook," and yet we feel much more strongly for Nagiko.Another interesting twist in the film is that the male lead is presented as the "dumb blond." We see Ewan MacGregor's Jerome-despite being a translator who knows first four, then somehow six languages-as something of a stupid pretty boy, a "scribbler," as Nagiko says.
It is simply arresting.Finally, "The Pillow Book" manages to end fairly hopefully, another shocker for a Greenaway film.
In "The pillow book" a story of love inside the words, inside the skin, touches everything in the viewer's senses.
The art displayed in every scene, in every combination of sequences, images, feelings, makes this movie a masterpiece, a classic that must be seen..
Along the way, she falls in love with Jerome, played with cat-like sensuality and cunning by Ewan McGregor.
This movie is one of the great arts movies Ewan Mcgreggor ever made.The story starts slow and in the beginning you are going to wonder if your watching the rite movie.Its a very unique film by Peter Greenaway and its also filmed in a very strange way.Some of the scenes are in black and white but the rest is in colour.Ita also a multi lingual film including :English, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, FrenchInbetween the most beautiful french love songs are sung which accompanies the "pillow book" scenes very wellAlthough this film contains a lot of nudity both male and female it should not be viewed for that reason but for the art of it.This is definitely a movie you must see if you love indie artsy movies.Like i said its filmed very strangely but once you get the drift is amazing8/10 deserved..
If you know Greenaway's work from other films and know that you like having to think at the same time as looking, then this is an excellent movie for you.The theme of the movie is complex, yet simple.
As a young girl in Japan, Nagiko's father paints characters on her face, and her aunt reads to her from "The Pillow Book", the diary of a 10th-century lady-in-waiting.
Nagiko grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies, and her sexual odyssey (and the creation of her own Pillow Book) is a "parfait mélange" of classical Japanese, modern Chinese, and Western film images.I had no idea what to expect from this film, as it does not seem to be fairly well known, and a title like "Pillow Book" does not give a clear indication.
My interest in the latter has waned dramatically in the last six or seven years, so it's a bit like time travel then, to see an old friend with whom you haven't been in contact in years but who was always close to you and you got along with splendidly.I'm starting this personal revival with the film that I have always loved best, the extravagance that is "The Pillow Book".
He did do " 8 1/2 Women" (1999) with Greenaway, but this film is the last exploration of the visual nesting of images through complex editing, and the apex of that art.
The film was very moving (emotionally)- the love of the couple, the love of the man reading this book as it is presented to him on these beautiful naked men's bodies.
Pillow Book takes me back to the first time I saw a Greenaway film and said to myself, this is a person who loves the media, wants to push the envelop.
This film is a multimedia event, watching subtitled Japanese movies and reading the Pillow Book in translation all at the same time.
And the intricate and beautiful use of story, calligraphy, images, and human flesh in this movie truly opened my eyes..
The plot, Nagiko's retaliation against a lecherous book publisher for his abuse of her father, remains secondary to the stunning visual and emotional work.The cultural of practice of writing on the body is Nagiko's erotic challenge.
Parfait melange!The hypnotizing sequence when Nagiko makes Jerome her lover has a unique visual poetry.It haunts me each time I see it.It makes me fall in love.Therefore, I must blame Peter Greenaway for teaching me this new unreasonable passion: the art of making my heart beat faster..
Sure the effect and colour were rather good, but it's weak in most other points except Ewan McGregor.Never mind the main story, what really gets on my nerves was the absolute lack of effort in understanding what Hong Kong is like, despite the fact that a large part of the movie was set in Hong Kong.
An art movie which mixes drama, literature, love, lovers, tragedy and culture besides the great photography and the great director Peter Greenway could never be one of the best films of the world.
Peter Greenaway's films are always visually and intellectually stimulating; The Pillow Book added cross cultural layers that demonstrate the depth of the director's artistry.
Most interesting, if only just to myself, is that while watching Pillow Book, I was struck with its similarity with The Cook  the Thief, his Wife and her Lover (1989), without realising that they were both directed by the same man, Peter Greenaway.
In this blending of cultures, there is also no loss of natural female eroticism, like that found in the original "Pillow Book".I think there are many other points made by the film, and I don't mean to anaesthetically boil down the movie to any of them.
I had heard about this Japanese, Chinese and English film a few times, even before I found out it was once listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I definitely had to watch it, directed by Peter Greenaway (The Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning by Numbers; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover).