Review of In the Realm of the Senses (1976) by Al M — 04 Aug 2010

Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses is best known as the film that serves as the dividing line between pornography and art, and it does indeed feature everthing short of money shots. It even plumbs the depths of several different sexual fetishes, but it is much more than art trying to make a political statement by offending the public and the censors.

While Oshima's film does strive to make such a political statement about censorship and art, it also is a profound exploration of love, lust, obsession, and identity. The film consists mainly of a series of sexual tableaux between the two lovers as their passion for one another becomes all-consuming and passing beyond mere intercourse and into potentially hazardous realms.

Based on a true story, Oshima's film is about the all-consuming force of love and the continually frustrated desire to genuinely be one with the other persion, to possess them completely. Profoundly disturbing and beautifully filmed, In the Realm of the Senses is not for the easily offended.

I can get a bit boring and repetitive because the sex scenes are long and failry constant, but it is still a powerful, daring, and original piece of filmmaking that spits in the eye of tradition and taboo.