A woman with a body-writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.A woman with a body-writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.A woman with a body-writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.
- Awards
- 5 wins & 3 nominations
Lynne Langdon
- Jerome's sister
- (as Lynne Frances Wachendorfer)
Ham Chau Luong
- Calligrapher
- (as Ham Cham Luong)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaEwan McGregor was uncomfortable about his parents watching the film, as he spends much of it being in the nude. His father took it well, and after seeing the film, responded to his son, via fax: "I'm glad you inherited one of my greatest attributes."
- GoofsNagiko says early on that her mother taught her Mandarin. Later, she says that she went to Hong Kong to improve the Chinese her mother taught her. However, the majority of people in Hong Kong speak Cantonese, not Mandarin.
- SoundtracksOffering to the Saviour Gompo
Performed by Buddhist Lamas & Monks of the Four Great Orders
Courtesy of Lyrichord Disks New York
Featured review
A Visual Celebration of Artists and Bodies. And Stereotypes.
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)
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)
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- noralee
- Dec 12, 2005
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- Escrito en la piel
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Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,372,744
- Gross worldwide
- $2,372,744
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