Taglines: A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.
The Pillow Book movie storyline. 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.
The Pillow Book is a 1996 drama film written and directed by Peter Greenaway, which stars Vivian Wu as Nagiko, a Japanese model in search of pleasure and new cultural experience from various lovers. The film is a melding of dark modern drama with idealised Chinese and Japanese cultural themes and settings, and centres on body painting. The film features full-frontal male nudity. It is also the first film distributed by Lionsgate Films.
About the Story
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.
The Pillow Book (1997)
Directed by: Peter Greenaway
Starring: Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor, Ken Ogata, Yoshi Oida, Hideko Yoshida, Judy Ongg, Yutaka Honda, Barbara Lott, Lynne Langdon, Shiho Takamatsu, Ken Mitsuishi
Screenplay by: Peter Greenaway
Production Design by: Kôichi Hamamura, Willemijn Loivers, Hiroto Oonogi, Andrée Putman, Noriyuki Tanaka, Wilbert Van Dorp
Cinematography by: Sacha Vierny
Film Editing by: Peter Greenaway, Chris Wyatt
Costume Design by: Martin Margiela, Dien van Straalen, Koji Tatsuno
Music by: Brian Eno
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: June 6, 1997
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