Die Bettlektüre (1996)

Die Bettlektüre: Directed by Peter Greenaway. With Vivian Wu, Yoshi Oida, Ken Ogata, Hideko Yoshida. A woman with a body writing fetish seeks to find a combined lover and calligrapher.

“I think Greenaway makes very smart films, and Iu0026#39;m really glad heu0026#39;s around. His intellect is always tuned to ideas about the visual, so we get a double measure: his images and his commentary on those same images. You should see this film if you think about communicating by image — you wonu0026#39;t find more beauty and recursive visual depth anywhere else.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThere are a few flaws in my mind, notable only because the film is so remarkable and because Greenaway shoots so high. A central dance here is the art of the writing (its appearance) and how that relates to the art the writing points to (its semantic meaning). So much elaboration of this works so well that I wonder why Greenaway went to such trouble to make the storyline so comprehensible. It is almost as if he is pandering to critics of his less accessible work. This greatly dilutes the impact for me, takes away from the point that the immediacy and fluidity and directness of the presentation by sense at least trumps the recoil by the mind. Perhaps is wholly substitutes. So why make so much sense? So that people will watch who wouldnu0026#39;t otherwise get it?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI wish Greenaway played more with contrasting ritual with spontaneity, especially since the Japan/Hong Kong cultural contrast, the publishing versus modeling contrast (permanent versus faddish), and the promiscuous lovers versus the honored parents all set things up so well. In particular, the soluble temporary nature of the writing turned into permanent tattoos at the end. What of that? It looked decorative only. Her breasts her new pillowbook?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you liked this film, youu0026#39;ll like the book: `Life: a Useru0026#39;s Manualu0026#39; (Perec) which works the same territory but has a better sense of how to come to an end. The hero spends a decade traveling to paint watercolors. These are turned into jigsaw puzzles which he spends a decade reassembling, rebinding the paper, and bleaching out the image. Each puzzle reflects on a story associated with a room or person in the Paris apartment building he has maintained and populated with unwitting tenants.”