Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
I’m beginning to think that Peter Greenaway is something of a creep. The Pillow Book is the third of his films that I have seen, and there’s something disturbingly sensual about his work. I don’t mean that his work is specifically erotic, although some of it is. I mean that how he chooses his particular sensuality is specifically off-kilter. Of the three I’ve seen (and there’s a fourth one coming soon), The Pillow Book is the most specifically sexually-charged and erotic, the most physically sensual and decadent rather than simply involving a lot of sex. The problem is a big one, though: it explores the depths of a sexual kink that I don’t think actually exists for real. Maybe I’m naïve. In truth there are probably entire websites devoted to this particular sexual proclivity. What the hell do I know?
Nagiko (played as an adult by Vivian Wu) had a father who was a writer. For good luck, he would write characters on her face in calligraphy. Her aunt would read to her out of the original Pillow Book, an ancient text that was a diary of observations. Nagiko will have a connection to this diary throughout her life. We learn that her father is forced to provide sexual favors to his publisher (Yoshi Oida) in order to get his work published at all.
