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Lucy Fischer
Only in Japan is tattooing an art; that is, only here has the craft of pigmentation become so skilled that it becomes an act of creation; and only here does this have the artistic dimensions of a long consecutive history ...
--Donald Richie, One Hundred Things Japanese, 135
In 1997, Peter Greenaway released a film entitled The Pillow Book that harkens back to a 10th century Japanese journal written by courtier, Sei Shonagon. In Greenaway's film, Nagiko, a contemporary Japanese woman (whose father had the eccentric practice of writing annual birthday greetings on her face as a child), attempts to recapture the excitement of that transgressive paternal act by encouraging her calligrapher-lovers to write on her body. Eventually, she meets Jerome, a bi-sexual English translator, who suggests that she inscribe the body of her male lovers, becoming the ''pen'' instead of the ''paper.'' She enacts this rite with a host of men, including Jerome, with whom she has a romantic liaison. When, through a series of complex circumstances and love triangles, Jerome dies--Nagiko has her body tattooed (a fact that is later visible as she nurses her child). Meanwhile, Jerome's male lover has his paramour's skin flayed, cured, and transformed into a human parchment book.
While Greenaway's film seems innovative and shocking in relation to questions of writing, eroticism, and the female body, many of the issues it raises were broached in a 1982 Japanese film made by Yoichi Takabayashi: Irezumi (Sekka Tomura Zashi)--also known as Spirit of Tattoo. It concerns Akane (Masayo Utsunomiya), a modern Japanese woman, who is having an affair with Fujeda (Yuhsuki Takita), an older library administrator, who can only be aroused by women who are tattooed. He is, in fact, on the verge of leaving his middle-aged, tattooed lover Haruna (Naomi Shiraishi), when his relationship with Akane begins. Bowing to his wishes, Akane meets with Kyogoro Yamato (Tomisaburo Wakayama)--a master tattooist (now a kimono designer), who has not practiced his craft in many years. After he apprises her of the perils of the process and questions her intent, he agrees to render for her a full-back tattoo--in the form of the image of Lady Tachibana as painted...