The Pillow Book (1997)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

the poetry of image. and words and gestures. subtle, cold, delicate, brutal, strange, seductive, intense, convincing, mysterious. letters and a book.sensuality. and the trip in a world so different to be more than phantasm. the poetry of a meet and the roots of a relationship. and the forms of faiths. in force of writing, in sensuality of a bizarre ritual, in the other, in the purpose of skin as paper for words who becomes sacred. it is not easy to define the air of this special film. an art film. it is not enough. a masterpiece. many viewers are far to give this definition. a beautiful film by a great not comfortable director. it could be a decent explanation. but not the most inspired. because to see it is a kind of game. the joy of play is superior to the victory.

I'm not even completely sure how I came across this film - it was either on the internet somewhere, or by sheer coincidence. But I definitely do not regret putting my two hours into it.I gave The Pillow Book a 9 out 10, simply because the director tried a little too hard with the picture-in-picture thing. Sometimes simultaneously watching two different, sometimes three different scenes at once, got a little chaotic and tiring. But more than that, it eventually just became annoying, and slightly irritated me a bit by the end. It definitely wasn't enough to take away from the film itself, though, it especially did not alter the plot in any way, shape, or form. A minor annoyance, that was meant to be artistic, but was eventually a little over-done in my own, personal opinion, while watching the film.I won't go into much detail of the plot, as countless other comments have already done so, but I will say this: I was a little lost at certain parts of this movie, and I'm not usually one to say that often. One of the parts was a very important scene in the film, that has a whole lot to do with everything, in the end. The scene I'm talking about is when the main character's father is being forced to have homosexual relations with his publisher in order to get his things published. When this was shown, it was just a little peek into the room, and I, for whatever reason, did not pick up on what was going on. Soon enough, the scene ended, another began, and I continued on my merry little way throughout the film, completely oblivious to the importance of that scene. There were a couple other, maybe 1 or 2, parts where I stopped and thought, "Wait, what?", but continued on, but they were so few, and much less important than that first one. So, do not be afraid of stopping the movie for a second, or rewinding it, if you are a little confused. At some points you're supposed to be confused, but others, you're not.I will admit that while my first run through this film, had I not finished it yet and was only a little bit before halfway through it, I would have probably given it a 6/10, maybe 7/10. It, at times, although I hate to admit it now, became a little boring to me. Some parts just did not make sense, and the little picture-in-picture was beginning to get to me some. But, I urge you all to stick with it, as it DOES get better! And it is completely worth your time in the end.There's no way I would regret spending two hours of my time for this film now, and I would love to see it again, though in a reasonable space of time. It's not exactly a movie you'd see once, and then go see again one or two days later since you loved it. It's more like you loved it still, but you should watch it with big time intervals inbetween. You'll forget the little details, and then, once immersed to it again, it will seem all the more pleasantly erotic and interesting. The tale even has a darker side to things towards the end, which was a bit of a surprise for me.Bottom line, I recommend this film to anyone who is open minded, mature, and has an interest in seeing and learning about new cultural experiences.

I had to push through the crowds on the sidewalk coming in and out of "Batman & Robin" to get to be one of four people in the theater to see "Pillow Book" - and two left during the movie. 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. The projectionist screwed up the first five minutes so it took awhile to figure out what was going on. Turns out Greenaway is primarily a visual artist; nice to see the cinematic techniques from the 1964/5 World's Fair finally being turned into an artistic purpose (other than the Woodstock movie). A theme is given at the end of the first third, roughly "There are 2 pleasures in life: those of the flesh and those of literature." And this combines them. However, as a visual artist he shrugs at the different definitions of "writing" - it's immaterial to him whether one means an author, a translator or a calligrapher, tho he scorns a "scribbler". The second part is Plot Central and Ewen is more insouciant and spirited than any other character to give the story life (though I had to laugh at the idea that he was a Yiddish translator), certainly more than the other living canvases (including the lead actress who was chosen less for her one-note acting than her willingness to be frequently nude one suspects). 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. What was more disturbing, however, is Greenaway buying into the Mysterious Orient. I do think we're hundreds of years overdue to stop this stereotype already. Was Japanese then chosen for the beauty of the calligraphy - or just so that Western audiences wouldn't be distracted by reading the words instead of soaking in images? Therefore is the movie a different experience for someone who can actually read the lettering? Let alone a non-English, non-Japanese reading audience. There's some bias intrinsic there. Why not use Latin? Arabic? Not everything is subtitled as the subtitle experience is part of the visual theme, such as when the gorgeous French song done over the love scene is only subtitled in French (I couldn't catch the credits that whisked by at the end). A nice visual pun near the end compared so many gangster movies where we see the neatly dressed Mafioso etc. in expensive suits putting on a pinkie ring, etc., and here the danger is clearly when the Yakuza-type takes off his clothes.(originally written 6/20/1997)

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'!