Insulting, provoking, vulgar, dirty, conceited. Arrived, disturbed, self-sufficient. Peter Greenaway is li..ttle unloved.
The falls (1980), Murder in an English Garden (1982), The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover (1989), The Pillow Book (1996) another masterpiece of Peter Greenaway, director, visual artist who remains one of the most unusual personalities in British cinema. The film, of an incredible narrative and pictorial richness, has as initial literary material the "the pillow book" of Sei Shōnagon, Japanese writer of the medieval era, author of poems, laments, anecdotes, reflections and observations gleaned throughout of his stay at the imperial court. Nagiko's father quotes Shōnagon when he begins to write on his daughter's forehead, and the story ends with an oracle predicted by the father figure, corresponding to the writer's thought.
In the meantime, the work recounts Nagiko's sentimental, professional and artistic journey, from her adolescence when she was married to a falot being who despises her, as she approached her thirties when she became a fulfilled writer, going through her depravity to honor the memory of her father, and the satisfaction of her obsession: to find the ideal lover-calligrapher, able to fulfill her desires and write beautiful texts on her skin.
Both cerebral and sensual, The Pillow Book is fascinating in the connections it establishes between art and the body. But if the body for Nagiko is the support of her passion for letters, the screen itself is presented as a work, the analogy between a scene and a page being recurrent throughout the film. However, no preciousness appears in this device, and the footage is a very beautiful object of cinema: the split screen, the inserts or the subtitles of melodies never divert the film towards the path of the exercise of style, both the emotion and the intelligence of the scenario and the setting in scene will bewitch. The filmmaker is also masterful in the mixture of references, genres, or sets, as well as in the breaks of tone.
Sliding from asceticism to baroque, from black and white to color; and the melodrama is interspersed with burlesque digressions, even with gory scenes. But these superimpositions are never free: the work maintains harmony and consistency, while defeating the expectations of the viewer. We must also underline the quality of Sacha Vierny's photo, as well as the diversity of musical choices, which goes perfectly with the multicultural dimension of the work: the popular Chinese song of the 1940s the "Rose Rose I Love You ”by Yao Lee, alternates with classical music or Buddhist prayers by Lamas and Monks, between the two sublime songs of Guesch Patti,“ Blonde ”and“ La Marquise ”.
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