Storyline

As a young girl in Japan, Nagiko's father paints characters on her face, and her aunt reads to her from "The Pillow Book", the diary of a 10th-century lady-in-waiting. Nagiko grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies, and her sexual odyssey (and the creation of her own Pillow Book) is a "parfait mélange" of classical Japanese, modern Chinese, and Western film images.

Plot Keywords

nudity, tattoo, mother daughter relationship, husband wife relationship, adultery, calligraphy, family honor, art, body painting, nipples, breast feeding, bra, bare butt, mother son relationship, nonlinear timeline, obsession, revenge, betrayal, homosexual, model

Short Review

One of the most accomplished chapters in Peter Greenaway's quest to turn movies into books, this may be the writer-director's metaphorical autobiography.

Trailer