In the Realm of the Senses

Ai no Corrida; erotic drama, Japan / France, 1976; D: Nagisa Oshima, S: Eiko Matsuda, Tatsuya Fuji, Aoi Nakajima, Meika Seri

Japan, '36. Abe Sada, a former prostitute, gets a new job as a maid in a hotel in order to pay off the debt of her husband. She meets the hotel's owner, Kichizo, a married man, and the two begin to have an affair that consists of pure, untrammelled sexuality. Abe's possessiveness and obsessive behavior with Kichizo grows to the point that she threatens to kill him if he so much as looks at another woman. The two of them spend days in bed. Their mutual obsession escalates when Kichizo finds he is excited by being strangled during sex. At one point, she strangles him too hard and kills him. She then cuts his genitals and writes "Sada and Kichi the two of us forever" in blood on his chest.

"In the Realm of the Senses" is one of the most radical films of its time, because it used sex as the one and only way to articulate and shape its story and style, an experimental work that's almost impossible to grade and a one that breaks all limits of taboo in portraying the human body as a limitlessly erotic entity with numerous physical functions. The story is about a couple that has sex almost nonstop—basically so often that it became a routine—and thus enables director Nagisa Oshima to explore Japanese sexuality and mentality. Unlike other erotic films, this one is somehow more realistic, genuine, honest and demanding. Some scenes are very brave; Abe is holding Kichizo's penis even during sleep. Kichizo puts an egg inside Abe's vagina, she "lays" it and orders him to eat it. It seems as if Oshima wanted to film all the things that subconsciously lie hidden in the minds of people who do not want to think about them, in order to confront and analyze them. Oshima is not skillful enough, but a lot of situations seem surprisingly humane and emotional (during a train ride, in which she had to leave her beloved one alone in a city, Abe leaves her seat to go to a private room and smell Kichizo's kimono she is wearing, yearning for him), and the sex/love scenes are directed in a way to seem both warm and cold. It seems it took an art-director to 'rehabilitate' sexuality in cinema, to show how it is a part of life, considering that many previous erotic films were panned by film critics, whereas in this one they had to admit it has artistic quality.

A story about Abe Sada could not have been made in any other way: her superpower is sexuality, she is the master of it, and uses it to express how much she loves Kichizo. She loves him, and loves him, and loves him. There is something pure in their relationship, since they are just so honest about how they feel. The whole story seems to be one giant allegory on transience, and on the attempts of the couple to try to escape from death through sex, the flow of time, and celebrate life to the fullest before it is over: sex is life, vitality, and is used in the film to try to delay impotence (death) as long as possible. Several “memento-mori” details seem to be placed deliberately in the film: in the opening act, an old man recognizes Sada, an ex-prostitute, but he cannot get an erection, so Sada pushes him away, revolted. He is a symbol of death, decay, of what awaits people at old age. Another is a sequence of the Japanese army marching in one direction (giving a political-historical context in only one sequence), towards war (death), while Kichizo is the only man marching in the opposite direction of them, since he follows life. This is contrasted by children featured in several scenes, who symbolize a new life and rejuvenation. Even Kichizo mimicks the ageing process: at first, he is able to have sex every day, but with time he gets tired, until in the final act he is mostly seen just lying in bed, withering away, unable to have an erection. Sada chokes him with a cord to try to squeeze some last impluses of energy out of him, to rejuvenate him, but even that fades away with time, so she gives him a mercy euthanasia to rid him of his state where he cannot experience passion anymore. One sequence stands out because it talks directly to the ending: Sada  mentions how her mother and father died, and sits down naked in a fetal position, revealing for the first time her vulnerable side, so Kichizo tries to comfort her and says: “Let our passion never end.” In the final scene, Sada has written “Sada and Kichi together forever”. As wild as they were, this was their own way of telling how much they love each other, and to curse the time for ending their paradise, which makes the two of them archetypal figures.

Grade:+++