1 out of 5

Director: Peter Greenaway

Well. I don’t get it. But it appears I’m not alone. This was my first Greenaway film. From the other comments here, it sounds like this wasn’t the place to start. My impression was one of everything in The Pillow Book seeming dialed in: the over-stylishness of it, the wandering narrative format, the “there’s a meaning in all this serious strangeness” setup. It seemed like a studious film student had watched an auteur and aped whichever auteur’s format, claiming the spawn as their own creation. In this case, it sounds like Greenaway might’ve been aping himself. The Pillow Book is about nothing. Apparently it’s about a chick who wants to write her book… on people. It starts with a tradition of a father writing a creation myth upon her face and neck as a child, then blossoms into a semi-erotic quest to find a calligrapher who can write beautifully upon her skin. Then it blossoms into a constantly naked relationship with a very young and thin Ewan McGregor, who plays a writer with a publisher hookup who agrees to be the first chapter in her books written on humans. Some other stuff happens in the film. But there’s no point to it. There’s no point to the character’s various interactions, or to the overlapping tiles used in the film’s presentation, or to the subtitles that float in and out. I’m sure it’s stylistically poignant if you’re particularly struck by any of the themes, but the themes are so bland and surface and our involvement in the film so unnecessary that nothing develops. 20 minutes in I realized the film had started, nothing was prologue… I was supposed to be watching. And I had no idea why. Copious nudity and 121 minutes later, I still couldn’t think of a reason for watching the film. I know Greenaway is a name, and there’s enough here to merit watching another film of his, but if film education ain’t your bag, then skip this one.