The Pillow Book (1996)
Directed by Peter Greenaway

Film Synopsis

Nagiko, an attractive fashion model in Hong Kong, has inherited her father's love of calligraphy, which he transmitted to her at an early age.  When she was a girl, he used to write expressions of good fortune on her face in beautiful handwriting.  Now she is a woman, she has a burning desire to find a lover whom she can persuade to write poems all over her body.  Then she meets Jerome, an English translator, who invites her to write on his body.  In the course of a passionate love affair, Nagiko and Jerome frequently indulge in their shared fetish for body writing, and this culminates with Jerome deciding to go to a publisher to sell the poems inscribed on his body.

When Nagiko discovers that the publisher and her lover have begun a torrid love affair she is incensed and resolves to get even with them both.  This she achieves by writing further books of poetry on other people, including a pair of Swedish tourists and an obese American.  Depressed, Jerome attempts to win back Nagiko by faking his suicide through an overdose of pills.  Unfortunately, he takes too many pills and dies, leaving his former lover devastated.  After the funeral, the publisher exhumes Jerome's body and removes the text-laden skin before converting it into a priceless pillow book...