In the Realm of the SensesIn The Realm of the Senses is one of the most widely discussed features of the 1970s. It remains a landmark picture, and there is also one fantastic film lurking behind the controversy. It tells the true tale (also told, less explicitly one year earlier in Noboru Tanaka's A Woman Called Sada Abe) of hotel maid Sada Abe who starts an affair with the married owner Kichizo. Their intense love making becomes more experimental and he discovers she becomes more aroused when he grips her neck in a stranglehold. He grows frustrated with the affair and gives Sada Abe the permission to end his life when they next have sex. She does so, and bloodily severs his penis off. She then carries it around Tokyo with her in her handbag for 4 days. When she is arrested she develops an odd following who rescue her from her legal predicament, praising her as a folk heroine. The film will always be remembered for its use of unsimulated hardcore sex in an otherwise mainstream, big-budget production. This caused massive hysteria and controversy in its native Japan. It's illegal to this day for it to be shown in its original uncensored version there, and it was refused classification in many other countries it was submitted to originally. The film had to be exported into France from Japan to be developed. Hot debate has always surrounded Ai No Corrida. Some deem it pure pornography, others a fierce work of daring art. Director Nagisa Oshima already had many well respected films behind him, a sudden shift into porn seemed unlikely. He simply used real sex in a story which features a lot of it. It certainly grabs the audiences attention and I for one applaud him for incorporating it into a narrative drama. The bottom line is In The Realm Of Senses is a film to be seen. 32 years after its first showing it remains a powerful, provoking, polished and stylish character study that is an absolutely mandatory viewing for anyone interesting in boundary pushing and controversial cinema.
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