Pillow Book

[Arnault CASTEL]

Unfortunately, I cannot give much comments on Greenaway's vision of Japan
as I just visited Japan at several occasions as a tourist. However, I've
been living in Hong Kong for quite some time and I had the strong feeling
that Greenaway never had any idea of what Hong Kong was about ( I am myself
a foreigner lost here and I don't pretend to understand much)

I believe that, for this "conceptual artist", Hong Kong was a good concept
: the bridge between East and West, modernity and tradition, culture and
money. I think that a little effort at observing the city. I think that a
closer look to the different layers that structure Hong Kong could prevent
him form this failure.

Obviously, Greenaway is a director that can give its best to describe death
and rottenness. He hence had a lot of difficulty to express this feeling of
"life in spite of everything" that structures Hong Kong history. But his
main failure lies somewhere else.

Hong Kong/Japan in "the Pillow Book", as well as Rome in "The Belly of an
architect" are not given a good treatment, as illustrated by the panoramic
views of the city that punctuate the movie (together with pompous music) :
it hardly reaches the level of an animated postcard (Hong Kong : big
buildings, fashion shows... Japan : temples, still lakes...).

A lot of places used in "The Pillow Book" (the bookstore, the cafe...) are
real places in Hong Kong, but Greenaway transforms them in something
totally different (settings, atmosphere). I don't expect to have a replica
of the Hong Kong I live in but I do not understand why Greenaway wants to
film this story in Hong Kong if "repaints" (literally and metaphorically)
the place according to his pre-conceptions. Some people will object that a
director should re-create the world according to his imagination. But then,
he should have a purpose and not be satisfied with decoration. "The Pillow
Book" give me the feeling that Greenaway had a simple idea of what he wants
to show (among others : a western man lost in the mysterious world and
rules of Asia). According to him, Hong Kong could be another symbol make
his point. However, when he faced the city, he did not try to understand it
and incorporates his findings in his movie. On the contrary, he used the
city and its culture mainly as a background that he modified according to
its preconceptions.

I believe the same goes for Japan in this movie : it is more the projection
of Greenaway's fantasies (sexual, cultural...) about Japan that an external
and new vision of Japanese art and society.

This is something I noticed several times when watching European movies.
Whereas Hong Kong/Japanese directors give you the feeling that they live in
the same city as you do and are sometimes able to lift the veil and give a
new vision of your surrounding, European directors tend to use their
environment as a useless blank canvas when they can paint a supposedly
meaningful picture.

I don't believe that a non-Japanese cannot make a good movie about Japan
(the same applies for Hong Kong). I just believe that the director could
get its inspiration from the country, its people, its culture and then
starts to present its personal  view. If the director just believes that
Japan/Hong Kong... is just a good environment/symbol to illustrate a
ready-made point of view, then there is little chance that the outcome
becomes interesting.

"Hiroshima mon amour" by Alain Resnais struck me when I first saw it. I now
have to check if the value of this movie corresponds to the criteria I
tried to fix above.

Sorry if this posting is not close to the objective of this newsgroup but
I'm new here. So, let me know  (and sorry for the bad English).

Arnault
Hong Kong