In a sentenceAll that skin, and we kept getting distracted by the handwriting
Nagiko (Vivian Wu) is at the centre of a story shaped by birthday rituals, written words and bodies used as paper. The Father (Ken Ogata), The Publisher (Yoshi Oida) and Jerome (Ewan McGregor) are the other principal figures. Writing becomes a physical act, with skin providing the surface on which words appear. Lists from a classical text accompany the drama, and separate images share the screen. Nagiko’s story brings bodily desire and the pleasures of writing together, making the relationship between a person and a page its central concern.
Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book makes writing on skin absorbing to watch, but struggles to make its people matter. The visual invention rewards curiosity; the thin drama makes 126 minutes feel a considerable commitment.
Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book is an absorbing visual experiment with a thin romance running through it. Writing on skin gives him a subject that can be sensual, peculiar and quite literal about the physical pleasure of words. He keeps finding ways to make us look at it. The trouble is that our interest in the lettering does not necessarily extend to whoever is wearing it, and the film needs that interest to sustain a romance.
Vivian Wu plays Nagiko, and her presence keeps the writing on skin from becoming an entirely decorative exercise. Her part needs us to care about the person beneath the lettering, which is harder than it should be. The birthday rituals offer something particular to hold on to amid the elaborate imagery. Elsewhere, Peter Greenaway gives the characters too little to do that feels independent of his wish to arrange and embellish them.
Sacha Vierny’s cinematography makes bodies covered in writing worth looking at long after we have understood the idea. Lettering and skin keep competing for attention, and the split screens add further choices about where to look. We were absorbed by those divided images, which made the act of looking feel unusually active. The sensuality is there, but it comes from watching shapes and surfaces, and it only intermittently makes us care about the people.
The editors, Chris Wyatt and Peter Greenaway, have plenty to organise, with words and bodies competing for space. The imagery accompanying the classical text’s lists gives that busy approach a purpose: the film lets reading and looking happen together. Elsewhere, further variations on the same device begin to feel like reasons to postpone the next piece of drama. At 126 minutes, it asks for more patience than its characters can reliably earn.
The production design team, which includes Wilbert Van Dorp and Andrée Putman, contributes to the film’s air of painstaking arrangement. The density of the images can be pleasurable, but after a while there seems too little space for anyone to behave untidily. Brian Eno’s music helps sustain the sensual atmosphere. It cannot make the relationships feel close when the script has left them so remote.
As an experimental romance, the film has good reason to avoid the usual reassuring exchanges and explanations. Ewan McGregor’s Jerome belongs to a cast willing to work within those limits, and the actors deserve credit for taking the material seriously. But we still need some sense of what these people mean to one another. Too often, Peter Greenaway seems satisfied once he has found another way of presenting the body, leaving us to supply the longing.
The film’s patience with its own devices will divide even viewers who enjoy experimental cinema. We would not suggest it as a first choice for an evening of romance. Choose it when the prospect of looking closely at pictures is enough, and do not expect the characters to repay all that attention.
The available reviews lean positive on The Pillow Book, with praise concentrated on its elaborate visual construction. Critics repeatedly single out the inventive imagery, intricate compositions and split-screen effects, finding sensual pleasure in a film that can otherwise feel cerebral. Even the harsher assessments acknowledge images worth looking at. The performances receive less consistent attention, though Variety praises the actors’ commitment to Greenaway’s approach.
The divide is over whether that approach sustains a drama. Reservations extend from an ordinary plot beneath the decoration to thin characterisation and emotional coldness; some favourable reviews share these concerns without finding them decisive. The AV Club finds unexpected humanity and satisfaction, while the Los Angeles Times sees weak drama and unpersuasive direction of the actors. The spread is wide: admirers find the visual invention sufficient reward, while detractors find the experience muddled or dull.
The review finds the film dense but enormously impressive, ultimately calling it awesome and beautiful. It singles out the inventive visual design and the actors’ commitment to Greenaway’s vision for praise.
Read the full review →The critic finds the film extraordinary and visually ravishing, though also over-decorated and emotionally cold. The split-screen motifs are singled out as a wonder to behold.
Read the full review →Maslin finds the film a spellbinding, highly seductive stylistic exercise, though its plot has a banal core. She especially praises its audacious imagery and intricate visual design.
Read the full review →Phipps finds the film surprisingly humane and satisfying, despite its cerebral detachment. He singles out its inventive visuals, which sometimes become sensual rather than merely dazzling.
Read the full review →The page is blocked, so the critic’s verdict cannot be verified. No praise or complaint is visible in the supplied page text.
Read the full review →The accessible page identifies this as a review, but its verdict is unavailable. The metadata describes Nagiko’s birthday rituals without revealing what the critic praises or criticizes.
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Prospero’s Books · not on Fi1m yetAnother Peter Greenaway experiment where bodies, books and layered images demand attention.
Hiroshima mon amourAn intimate encounter becomes a searching film about memory and desire.
Woman in the Dunes · not on Fi1m yetTactile images and confined bodies turn an unusual premise into sustained unease.
The Colour of Pomegranates · not on Fi1m yetFor the pleasure of reading images when conventional storytelling has stepped aside.
Portrait of a Lady on FirePainting, patient observation and desire lead to a warmer, more intimate romance.
