CRAZY, as is well known, comes in two forms: like a fox and like a loon-madness with method in it, or just plain dementia. The British filmmaker Peter Greenaway partakes of both: some of his films come across more foxy than loony, others the reverse. The Pillow Book, his latest, is on the cusp: you are never sure whether it is the work of a coolly cerebral prestidigitator or an obsessive compulsive.
A thousand years ago, Sei Shonagon, lady-in-waiting to the Imperial Court during the Heian dynasty, kept a diary of her thoughts, feelings, and experiences (chiefly amorous)-The Pillow Book, a Japanese classic. A chiliad later, Greenaway tells the story of Nagiko, who grows up in the same city of Kyoto, the daughter of a writer and calligrapher. On her every birthday, while her aunt reads out loud from The Pillow Book, her father writes (paints) an ancient creation myth on the child’s face and nape. After which he must trundle off to his publisher and blackmailer, and submit to him sexually. Eventually Nagiko is forced to marry the publisher’s cloddish son, who burns her books and diaries, whereupon she runs off to Hong Kong.
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