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Poster for The Pillow Book

The Pillow Book

1995 · 2h 6m · NOT RATED Drama, Romance
Directed by Peter Greenaway

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Overview

A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
66%
Tomatometer
Fresh

At first daunting but ultimately awesomely impressive and beautiful.

David Stratton, Variety
Fresh

A very intimate, sensual film, and a torrid, lurid melodrama, full of passion, jealousy, hatred and revenge.

Derek Adams, Time Out
Fresh

A seductive and elegant story that combines a millennium of Japanese art and fetishes with the story of a neurotic modern woman who tells a lover: "Treat me like the pages of a book."

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Rotten

Greenaway, whose mind is one of the most impressive, complicated organs that ever sat on the shoulders of a filmmaker, seems to be playing connect the dots to himself, almost dumbing himself down to be commercial.

Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Rotten

Despite its arresting visual style, its wave after wave of creative and hypnotic images, "The Pillow Book," as its name hints, slowly but inexorably leads to sleep.

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

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