In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

The Worst Film Ever

Overrated

Awesome Movie

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It goes without saying Ôshima's succès de scandale is not for the squeamish, its blatantly hardcore content (unsimulated sexual activity including fellatio, fornication, and a puckish egg-hatching prank) shatters the last defense of anyone's reserves about human copulation, thus topples it from its tabooed sanctuary, then demythologizes it with a pretension-free candidness and boldly burrows into the subject of the often oppressed and sidelined female sexuality, yes, it is actually based on a true story occurred in the 1930s.When Sada Abe (Matsuda), a former prostitute who works as a maid in a hotel in Tokyo, first lays her eyes on her employer Kichizo Ishida (Fuji), it is in the middle of the conjugal duty between him and his wife Toku (Nakajima), a passionless, ritualistic rumpy-pumpy that bewitches her. So when a virile Kichizo takes a fancy to her, something irrepressible is ignited, their illicit affair spreads like wide fire, they stay together in various inns, entertained by sundry geisha, and from then on, Ôshima leverages their indoor activities interrupted only by necessary outings, viz., when Sada has to tide themselves over by way of solicitation, or Kichizo is bound to visit home for a three-day stint. It is these seemingly short separations and its resultant jealousy that torment both, and spur them into more extreme measurements in their sexological exploration, until Sada finds the button of choking Kichizo during penetration to sate her libidinous upswing, whereupon she must keep pushing it.What mesmerizes viewers is Ôshima's unsparing portrayal of Sada's randiness and her ingrained phallus worship, every waking minute she seeks for Kichizo's private parts, the fact that she completely overpowers him, dominantly rides on him, has him do her bidding, could be any man's worst nightmare, yet there is truth in the discrepancy between male and female's orgasms, and what if a man cannot sexually satisfy a woman he loves? A perpetual dread hovering every heterosexual man's ego and occasioning chasm if mistreated, we must hand it to Ôshima for his audacity to lay it open like this, however radical it looks, and demands us to re-examine the different vibes in man and woman's sexual equilibrium. Conversely, all Ôshima's effort, essentially de-eroticizes and desensitizes sex itself when we are inured to their oversexed indulgence, it is not amorous, not aesthetic, not even orthodoxly arousing, which causes it to be subsumed into an act solely stimulated by primeval desire. If one puts their perversion under the milieu, it can be feasibly read as a resistance towards the ethos of its time, and Ôshima's anti-militarism disposition writs large in the segment where Kichizo glumly passes by a band of marching army, on the opposite direction with the flag-waving populace. Both Matsuda and Fuji brave themselves for their controversial roles, an unsparing devotion to the art form even with the foregone conclusion that the film would impinge on their acting careers, while Matsuda thoroughly incarnates Sada's undue possessiveness, insatiable lust and hellbent conviction of going whole hog, Fuji's wayward resignation is much more telling in his shiftless head space that disillusion and malaise might be the more pertinent cause behind his destructive behavior, both deserve to be put on a pedestal for their earth-shattering derring-do along with the film itself, a sui generis cause célèbre that throws away human's last fig leaf to state its sharp-edged point.

Japanese erotic drama, which, balancing on the very edge of pornography, tells a fascinating story about love, passion, and obsession that leads to inevitable death.8/10

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to a sexual obsession which then came to a violent end.This film is easy to dismiss as "glorified porn" or something of that nature. Indeed, it tends to go beyond what we call soft-core... there is no hiding the male anatomy and some acts are rather explicit. And yet, I never really felt like the film was "dirty" or gratuitous.There is something to be said about love, sex, obsession and the life of a geisha. Certainly in western society we find it hard to believe a prostitute or porn star could have a meaningful relationship or be in love. What of the Japanese, who view prostitution somewhat differently? This is an interesting exploration.

Nagisa Oshima liked to make aggressive and challenging films, but no other work of his was as controversial as In the Realm of the Senses, which was banned in several countries after its release, the uncut version still being banned in Japan. The movie was made with French money because no Japanese producer would dare touch it because of censorship laws. The film was filmed in Japan, but the footage was shipped to France so it could be processed.In the Realm of the Senses is one of five (!) biographical films made about Sada Abe and Kichizo Ishida, the real life '30s couple whose affair ended disastrously; Sada castrated Kichizo and went around with his penis in her handbag around Tokyo for days afterwards. The story gathered controversy and media attention, and so did the film. The hype to see this film at the Cannes film festival was so high that 13 screenings were arranged. In Portugal, Archbishop of Braga D. Eurico Dias Nogueira has said that he 'had learned more in 10 minutes of the film than in his entire life'.The movie contains unsimulated sex between the two actors Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda, among others. Plus, many scenes celebrate sex or present it in a titillating manner, so technically this movie is art-house pornography, but if it is, then it's really, really emotionally intense and compelling as far as porn goes. The film depicts a relationship free of all weights and responsibilities, where hedonistic sexual obsession in itself becomes the source of satisfaction for the couple, and how such an approach to life can lead to disaster.The film is very confrontational and doubtless as to what it wants to show. Almost every possible sex act finds its way into the runtime, it's as if sex scenes are the primary tool Oshima uses to tell the story. The movie is so sexually charged that not only do characters get laid, but also an egg does (ba-dum tsss). By Sada. So it gets really grotesque and bizarre at several turns. It's also the third Japanese film I've seen so far where kakurenbo (hide and seek) is played, only this time I'm left wondering what the point of the scene was.The color cinematography is beautiful, amazing. Continuing the artistic heritage from traditional erotic woodblock prints (shunga), multicolored kimonos (one of which has Triforces) and flashy indoor decor are soaked in inviting warm shades of red and orange, with snow falling just outside. This contrast echoes the rising of cold militarism outside, while Sada and Kichizo get all comfy and warm indoors in their privacy. The traditional music is also very memorable and amplifies the mood of the film perfectly. It's hard to imagine it without its soundtrack.