Review of In the Realm of the Senses (1976) by Erik S — 13 Aug 2008

I was hard put to begin describing the whole aesthetics of this film. During the time that it was produced and shown in Japan, it could be easily viewed as pornography, depending really on how you were brought up to understand the word and its explicitness and how it should be presented in a film that tackled the subject. There are just two things that come to mind too while watching this powerful film. Sex. Sex. Sex in the most physicality of the word, in the braveness and *I dare* attitude of Nagisa Oshima.

Based on a controversial true scandal in Japan during the 1930â??s it narrates the journey of the two characters, Kichiso and Sada, employer and servant respectively, into fulfilling the insatiable desire to answer the call of the flesh. Itâ??s as real for me as any theme that a movie can hinged into. Sex is a powerful subject that should be treated with utmost delicacy, and though Oshima did go beyond that, calling this pornography seems quite biased. If its pornography only, then it lacks the perversity and mindless raunchiness that the viewer would want his porno film should be.

Obsessive sex could be an addiction and that is a fact. Like alcoholism, it could perverse the act. The film dangled between these lines yet was able to pull through. The man and womanâ??s incessant coupling to answer a desperate call in each other had over-ridden their better judgment. And like an addiction, it turned out ugly in the end, thus the tragic ending of this film.

One thing that makes me comfortable in watching whatever extreme perversity and gore I can endure to watch is that at the end of the day, I know itâ??s just a film. But this story was based on a true story and a personal belief that itâ??s SO EASY to fall enslaved and obsessed with satiating an almost painful need to satisfy our carnal desires as much as getting hooked on alcohol and drugs to numb something unbearable within usâ?¦.

Unsettling.

Itâ??s a story that needs a lot of understanding and open-mindedness. Otherwise, it would simply fall flat as an endless stream of explicit sex and scandalous symbolism... I'd leave that for you to discoverâ?¦.