The Pillow Book (1997)

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

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. What we have is pure art, captured on film. The calligraphy is gorgeous, even if I am unable to read it. And just the way the film is shot.What will stand out for many people is the large amount of male nudity. Ewan McGregor is naked for quite a bit of the film, and he is not alone (though he is the only "name" actor). This was a brave, bold decision, although it likely caused the film to be released in fewer theaters than it should have been.

Miller Analogy Test: Occasionally cold is to Antarctica as Occasionally obsessional is to Peter Greenaway. This film goes way beyond being a study in art form and the blending of body and calligraphy -- the detour into Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder-land morphs into a permanent trip to the insane asylum. Let's consider the repetitive elements: Body calligraphy starting from the first scene that reoccurs year by year, and later in more modern life, day-by-day; the picture-in-picture techniques; the subtitled translations; the various books that appear in many guises. This is fractal film making where the larger image is actually repeated copies in ever smaller form without boundaries, without any consideration outside of art, form, and the pure expression of sensuality (in all senses, but particularly vision and touch). // I suspect I'm one of the few people giving this movie a mid-rating. Except to observe a tour-de-force of a singular obsession, I can't imagine why one would voluntarily see the whole movie.

This movie was awful, as well as disturbing. A Japenese woman is obsessed with being written on, like her father did. Her search for a proper lover to write on her as she wishes leads to Jerome (Ewan MacGregor), but not before a good half hour into the movie. They are in love, they paint each other, have lots of graphic sex, etc. Then because they want to get a book published or something, she allows Jerome to sleep with this old guy who owns a book store. Jerome is having a lot of fun, and doesn't return on time so she banishes him. He gets depressed a commits suicide. Then she paints on his body and buries him. The old guy digs up his body, and I wish I had turned the movie off right after that. Make sure you do. You do not want to see what happens next.

Visually cluttered, plot less, incredibly mind-numbing rubbish. Not even close to Greenaway's better work. 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. He showed more ability in the Star Wars series, and that's saying something.I've not been so unimpressed with a film since I saw 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People'!