the pillow book

When God made the first clay model of a human being, He painted in the eyes... the lips... and the sex. And then He painted in each person's name lest the person should ever forget it. If God approved of His creation, He brought the painted clay model into life by signing His own name.

Although released in 1996, for some reason, "The Pillow Book" has just entered Romanian cinemas. But it was certainly worth watching. Directed by Peter Greenaway (as if this didn't say everything), the movie is an erotic tale of passion, creation and perfection, developed around the "two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature." Witty, experimental and mostly enjoyable, the movie slowly introduces you in another world, which quickly imposes its high standards and doesn't bore for a minute, despite all sorts of unconventional use of cinema techniques. The soundtrack is perfectly integrated in the tale, adding a spark of multicultural experience. All in all, the movie manages to combine in a balanced manner the ugly instances, out of which life experience can later extract and manufacture the beauties that matter, with rhetorical questions of creation and genesis, building all this around thirteen originally-written books. 9/10

Quotes that i liked:

• Nagiko: Where is a book before it is born? Who are a book's parents? Does a book need two parents - a mother and a father? Can a book be born inside another book? Where is the parent book of books? How old does a book have to be before it can give birth?
• Nagiko: I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable: the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature. I have had the good fortune to enjoy them both equally.
• Nagiko: Farewells can be both beautiful and despicable. Saying farewell to one who is loved is very complicated. Why should a person be obligated to stand such sweet pain and such bitter pleasure?
• Nagiko: The smell of white paper is like the scent of skin of a new lover who has just paid a surprise visit out of a rainy garden. And the black ink is like lacquered hair. And the quill? Well, the quill is like that instrument of pleasure whose purpose is never in doubt but whose surprising efficiency one always, always forgets.