IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (1976)

A.K.A.: Ai No Korida

Country: France / Japan

Genre(s): Drama / Romance

Director: Nagisa Oshima

Cast: Eiko Matsuda / Tatsuya Fuji / Aoi Nakajima

Plot

In 1930s Japan, a former prostitute becomes obsessed with her employer’s husband during an increasingly sado-masochistic sexual affair.

What I Liked

The 1970s.  The decade that films like “Debbie Does Dallas,” “Deep Throat,” and “The Green Door” generated a so-called “porno chic” in America.   The decade that mainstream films became increasingly more graphic in their depiction of sexuality: “Last Tango in Paris,” “Salo,” and “Caligula,” for example.  And Nagisa Oshima’s “In the Realm of the Senses” probed the previously unexplored border between porn and the mainstream.  Where “Tango” and the mainstream flicks I mentioned earlier featured copious nudity and simulated sex, Oshima dared to put actual sex on screen: fellatio, penetration, erections.  Yet the movie makes no attempt to pander to the base distortions and fantasies of pornography.  While several stylized erotic moments are present, the sex and nudity are displayed in a manner that is not solely to titillate the audience but also to disturb the audience, to make the relationship between its main characters painful to watch rather than arousing to watch.  As was the case with “Tango,” both characters here use sex to alleviate the only things they have in common, loneliness and self-loathing.  Pornography, by necessity, never bothers to explore either loneliness or self-loathing in any meaningful way.

Just as the filmmakers themselves drove past the line of taboo, the main characters allow themselves to play with a dangerous middle ground between love and hate, pleasure and pain, life and death.  At first their sex is playful and flirtatious but quickly progresses into a kind of instinctive need.  Before long one gets the feeling that these two are being suffocated (not just literally, but that too) by their carnal desires, that self-destruction is inevitable.  Even more disconcerting, it’s clear that both characters are aware of this too and they seem to long for the final climax of death.

What I Didn’t Like

As groundbreaking as it must have been in 1976, the movie’s themes have since been thoroughly mined by countless of psycho-erotic movies of varying quality.  Real sex is still pretty rare in mainstream film, so that aspect of the film’s edginess still sets it apart.  But for the most part the whole theme of sadomasochistic relationships and sexual obsession, though effectively rendered here, doesn’t have the same taboo punch it would have for filmgoers over thirty years ago.  And, really, this film is built around those elements, so its impact and entertainment overall has been weakened (if only slightly) by its many imitators.

Most Memorable Scene

One particularly bloody act is foreshadowed throughout the entire film yet will still make anyone but a sociopath cringe to watch when it finally comes.  It’s not that this moment was more artfully done.  It’s just the fact that the filmmakers actually went there.  The event is made even more disturbing (and necessary) by the fact that it’s all part of a true story.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5