THE PILLOW BOOK
THE PILLOW BOOK
Every year on her birthday, her father writes birthday wishes in calligraphy on little Nagiko’s face, whilst her aunt reads to her excerpts from the diary of Sei Shōnagon – a lady-in-waiting to the Japanese empress a thousand years ago.
This ritual will continue to accompany the protagonist into her adult life, the beginning of which is marked by Nagiko’s decision to flee Kyoto to escape an arranged marriage. She ends up in Hong Kong – a modern-day metropolitan Tower of Babel, where languages, cultures, the world of high fashion and fast food all intermingle.
Nagiko begins working as a model, but only one thing gives her real pleasure: the brush of a calligrapher-lover moving across her skin. For a long time, she cannot find anyone who meets her expectations, until she meets an English translator – Jerome – who suggests to her that, instead of canvas, she should be the pen. From that moment on, Nagiko regains her agency and begins to write her story on others. The body becomes a book; writing – a form of desire.
THE PILLOW BOOK is Greenaway’s only film to immerse itself so fully in East Asian culture, and one of his most sensual works. Inspired by a thousand-year-old diary, it transports its spirit into the neon-lit, digital world of the late 20th century. Greenaway builds the film through layered images and split screens, allowing several scenes to unfold at the same time.
Text: dr Adrianna Woroch
1996 | 126'
Peter Greenaway
France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, UK
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