The Pillow Book

• Cat.no: VCD 0018
• Cert: 18
• Running time: 120 minutes
• Year: 1995
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 16 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Surround (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English translations
• Widescreen: various within a 4:3 frame
• 16:9-enhanced: No
• Macrovision: Yes
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Trailer
  

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  Director:

  Peter Greenaway

  (The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover, The Draughtman’s Contract, Drowning By Numbers, The Falls, Prospero’s Books, TV: A TV Dante)

Producer:

Screenplay:

Peter Greenaway

Cast:

Nagiko: Vivian Wu (Blindness, A Bright Shining Lie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3)
The Father: Ken Ogata (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters)
Jerome: Ewan McGregor (Blue Juice, Brassed Off, Emma, A Life Less Ordinary, Shallow Grave, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, Trainspotting, TV: E.R., Kavanagh Q.C., Lipstick On Your Collar)

The Pillow Bookis another term for a diary and Nagiko (Vivian Wu) is introduced toone that’s nearly a thousand years old when she is just a young child and itinspires her to begin a ‘pillow book’ all of her own in which to collectall of her loves and experiences.

At the same time her calligrapher father inscribes a birthday greeting on herface and signs his name on her back. Once a year, on her birthday, he receivesa visit from his publisher but whereas most people use the front door, fortheir private meetings the only way in is strictly through the tradesman’sentrance (!)

Later on in life, she gets a passion for having her body covered completelyin the script but her husband doesn’t share this desire. Eventually, shemeets up with an English translator named Jerome (Ewan McGregor) whodecides she should be the pen, not the paper and asks her to draw on his skinand he shall deliver these manuscripts to the publisher.

The picture quality is fine but nothing to write home about. The back coverstates a 4:3 ratio, but it’s actually several ratios, often overlapping,within a 4:3 frame. I’m not sure how this translated in the cinema though.It’s a bizarre thing to do but then Peter Greenaway was neverconventional. The average bitrate of 7.17Mb/s is very good and regulary peaksover 8Mb/s.

The sound is reproduced in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround) and comes acrossclearly but won’t set your speakers on fire.

I loved Greenaway’s The Cook The Thief His Wife and Her Lover butnot all of his films are to my taste and The Pillow Book just doesn’tgel from the word go. In fact, it’s so boring it was nearly awarded zerostars, but only gets half-a-star because no film is as bad as Fellini’sSatyricon.FILM CONTENT : ½PICTURE QUALITY: ***SOUND QUALITY: ***EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: **

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999