SOURCE: Simon, John. Review of The Pillow Book, by Peter Greenaway. National Review 49, no. 13 (14 July 1997): 53–55.

In the following review, Simon offers a positive assessment of The Pillow Book, calling the film “overwhelming” and “blissfully liberating.”

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...