The Pillow Book (film)
The Pillow Book is a 1996 erotic drama film directed by Peter Greenaway, inspired by the classical Japanese book of the same name. Unlike the original novel, which was centered in eroticism and court intrigue, this story centers in Kiyowara Nagiko, a modern-day fan and emulator of Sei Shonagon.
Nagiko has a fetish on writing on her skin, which developed from her father's habit of writing good omens on her face. Unfortunately, her life was ruined when her father's publisher lodged within her family, forcing himself on her father and making her marry his apprentice, a man that resented her free spirit and literacy. After Noriko escapes her marriage, she becomes a model and tries to find a lover who indulges on her fetish, but all men she find are good calligraphers but lousy lovers or viceversa. Then she meets Jerome, a British translator who, after being informed he falls into the second category (he is a good calligrapher, just not in Chinese characters), asks her to teach him by writing on his skin to become more like what she desires. This unexpected petition of reciprocity awakes on Noriko a bigger awareness of her own desires, and marks the beginning of a chain of events that will lead to her finally taking revenge in the publisher that ruined her family.
Vivian Wu plays Nagiko and Ewan McGregor plays Jerome.
- Arranged Marriage: Noriko gets forced to marry the apprentice of The Publisher. It doesn't work, as the husband deeply resents Noriko's literacy and desire to learn, and eventually burns her first pillow book when he reads her unflattering depictions of their marriage. She abandons him no longer after that.
- Best Served Cold: Nagiko's revenge is years in the making.
- Bi the Way: Nagiko's lover, Jerome.
- Body Paint: Nagiko's fetish
- But Not Too Foreign: Nagiko's mother is Chinese, but her father is Japanese.
- Depraved Homosexual: The Publisher, against whom Nagiko takes revenge.
- Fake Nationality: Nagiko is played by Vivian Wu (邬君梅 Wū Jūnméi) a Chinese actress born in Shanghai. Appropriately, in the film, Nagiko's mother is also from Shanghai.
- Gone Horribly Right: After being spurned by Noriko for dismissing her editorial success, Jerome is convinced that he can get into her favor again by writing a book in his skin and faking a suicide a là Romeo and Juliet. Noriko does gets the pics of his written skin and is touched enough to forgive him and take him back, but, like in the Shakespearean play, she arrives too late and finds him already dead from an accidental overdose.
- Grave Robbing: The Publisher.
- In Name Only: The movie only indirectly refers to the original work, doing so through the prism of a more conventional present-day story of love, revenge, and above all fetishism - namely, writing on human skin.
- Jerk Jock: Nagiko's husband.
- Meaningful Funeral: Jerome's
- Named After Somebody Famous: Nagiko is informed that she shared her name with the author of the original Pillow Book.
- No Name Given: The Publisher, Father, Mother, Aunt, Maid, Husband... In fact Nagiko, Jerome, and Hoki are the only characters in the film who are given names.