In the Realm of the Senses

In the Realm of the Senses is unlike anything I’ve seen. Intensely disturbing, sexually explicit, beautifully framed and shot, and based on actual events, it’s considered a masterpiece by some and controversial filth by others. This 1976 French-Japanese art film was written and directed by Nagisa Oshima, one of Japan’s masters of cinema. It has been cut into less graphic versions in some countries, was edited in France and listed as a French production to bypass Japan’s strict censorship laws, and was banned in Belgium until 1994, the only film to be banned there since.

Ian Buruma, in his 2018 book A Tokyo Romance, remarks: “No filmmaker had ever pulled off anything like this before. The movie was both hard core and tender, a cinematic blow for sexual freedom, especially for women.”

I’ve never seen or read anything that inspires so much pity for a man’s penis! Due as much to its constant servicing of the insatiable Sada as to its ultimate fate.

Sada Abe (played by Eiko Matsuda), a maid at a Tokyo hotel frequented by geisha, though a former prostitute, falls deeply for the hotel owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji). For much of the film, the camera focuses on their sexual experimentation and growing mutual obsession. With Oshima’s distinctive visual style, this doesn’t come across as pornography but instead places the viewer in the position of voyeur, and ultimately witness to mutilation and murder.

According to Ian Buruma, the real Sada Abe, who was arrested four days after the killing, appeared calm, even pleased with herself. News of the crime spread quickly across Japan, and public sentiment was surprisingly sympathetic. She was given a relatively light sentence. And she later opened a bar somewhere in Tokyo, where, as Donald Richie noted after a visit to the place, the regulars would stand up and cup their hands over their genitals each night when this infamous mama-san walked in.

The real Sada Abe immediately after her arrest (May 20, 1936 at Takanawa Police Station)