I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

People are voting emotionally.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

As a young girl in Japan, Nagiko's father paints characters on her face, and her aunt reads to her from "The Pillow Book", the diary of a 10th-century lady-in-waiting. Nagiko grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies, and her sexual odyssey (and the creation of her own Pillow Book) is a "parfait mélange" of classical Japanese, modern Chinese, and Western film images.I had no idea what to expect from this film, as it does not seem to be fairly well known, and a title like "Pillow Book" does not give a clear indication. What we have is pure art, captured on film. The calligraphy is gorgeous, even if I am unable to read it. And just the way the film is shot.What will stand out for many people is the large amount of male nudity. Ewan McGregor is naked for quite a bit of the film, and he is not alone (though he is the only "name" actor). This was a brave, bold decision, although it likely caused the film to be released in fewer theaters than it should have been.

Inventive and most original, full of arresting images and unpredictable developments, this flick has one fatal flaw.The whole progression of the story is predicated on the character Nagiko's obsessive power over others. One would have to have the beauty and fascination of ten Mata Haris to carry off this woman's singular willfulness. But the actress who impersonates Nagiko has none of that. She is a reasonably pretty female with little or no personal magnetism that one can discern. Her high-pitched voice and peevish, juvenile enunciation of the English language are singularly irritating. At one point she is called by the script to scream out the name Jerome a dozen times (she pronounces it "J'roam"): she sounds like a hysterical high school student, or perhaps a dental assistant whose finger has been drilled through.As a result of this flaw, the spectator is bewildered by the sight of two dozen men running around feverishly trying to execute this woman's whims. It makes nonsense of the whole situation.Ewan McGregor is sweet and charismatic (and lovely to look at) as the much screamed about Jerome—one wonders what did he ever see in the aggravating Nagiko.

A movie-book. The lecture like gesture of a religion, the signs like guides in a world of every beginning. Art like sin and the human body or the paper -same material of same rite. The nudity is not relevant, The search of perfection, love like sacrifice and the gift of a new Cassandra. Tale of escape, soft "Salo", "Pillow Book" is the mark of love's bones and the price of secret. Only character in this movie is only a instrument of art. Nagiko is himself a page, and the relation with Jerome is creation's act of the necessary book. So, freedom is utopia, hope- only mask, the letters- heats of seconds who wait the victim. A huge library is this movie in which lights, gestures and intentions are the bread of the mythical animal who lived in everyone.

This movie was awful, as well as disturbing. A Japenese woman is obsessed with being written on, like her father did. Her search for a proper lover to write on her as she wishes leads to Jerome (Ewan MacGregor), but not before a good half hour into the movie. They are in love, they paint each other, have lots of graphic sex, etc. Then because they want to get a book published or something, she allows Jerome to sleep with this old guy who owns a book store. Jerome is having a lot of fun, and doesn't return on time so she banishes him. He gets depressed a commits suicide. Then she paints on his body and buries him. The old guy digs up his body, and I wish I had turned the movie off right after that. Make sure you do. You do not want to see what happens next.