Film: The Realm Of The Senses
Release date: 21st May 2001
Certificate: 18
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Nagisa Ôshima
Starring: Tatsuya Fuji, Eiko Matsuda, Aoi Nakajima, Yasuko Matsui, Meika Seri
Genre: Drama/Romance
Studio: Nouveaux
Format: DVD
Country: Japan/France
Still pushing the boundaries of sexual acceptability thirty-five years since its initial release, Nagisa Oshima’s The Realm Of The Senses still has the ability to shock even today. Set in 1930s Japan, the film is based on the true story of Abe Sada and her love affair with Kichizo Ishida.
Abe Sada is an ex-prostitute working as a servant girl in the household of Kichizo Ishida. Abe spies on Kichizo making love to his wife and becomes fascinated by him. Abe is more than willing to reciprocate Kichizo’s eventual sexual advances towards her. From this point, the two can barely be separated, and begin to take more and more risks when engaging in their ever increasing sexual encounters.
Eventually Abe is moved from Kichizo’s house to stop any unwanted intrusions from his wife, which may interrupt their incessant love making. Now unrestricted, their sexual encounters become more lurid and extreme, and little care is given to who may be present or involved. The two lovers spend more and more time together, even forsaking cleaning or eating as they become lost in the ecstasy of their lovemaking.
Abe and Kichizo become increasingly detached from the real world, only their lust remains, and their search for greater pleasure…
Nagisa Oshima takes an uncompromising look at the destructive sexual relationship between Abe and Kichizo, in all its graphic detail. One would be forgiven at first glance for believing that The Realm Of The Senses was simply a pornographic film, but this is far from the truth.
Through the unflinching camera we are privy to each and every sordid detail of Abe and Kichizo’s sexual relationship. Indeed, we are forced to watch as the cinematography is orchestrated to give the viewer nowhere else to look by its overuse of close ups and mid shots. The sets are small, cramped and have little detail in them to cause any distraction from the two naked bodies filling the screen.
It is this unrelenting and non-stop assault on the senses that makes The Realm Of The Senses such a powerful film. Whereas pornography is used for arousal, The Realm Of The Sense becomes almost too much to bear, as the audience is given no respite from the continuous lovemaking of Abe and Kichizo. The visceral and unflinching depiction of the two’s addiction to one another is similar in many ways to a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Requiem For A Dream, albeit passion instead of violence and drug abuse. Both film subject there audience to non-stop graphic imagery and narrative pace that leaves viewers exasperated and almost relieved at their conclusions. The audience is literally dragged along with the plight of Abe and Kichizo as they get lost in their addiction to one another, not wanting it to stop, but knowing, at some point, it has to end. This all makes for a challenging and emotionally robust film.
The performances of Tatsuya Fuji (Kichizo) and Eiko Matsuda (Abe) are both strong, especially considering the types of acts they were required to perform. They both capture perfectly the changes wrought on each of them by their constant and obsessive love making. We see Kichizo turn from a powerful and dominant male into a wraith like figure barely able to walk. His resemblance to a drug addict is poignant, as he quite clearly is a man with an addiction which he knows he can’t stop - his acceptance of his situation is one of the highlights of the film. Eiko Matsuda gives a good performance as Abe, and the character acts as juxtaposition to that of Kichizo - where he begins to fade, Abe becomes more passionate and descends further and further into her madness. However, this all being said, the characters do lack some depth, which is a result of the film’s intent to create its non-stop assault on the senses, allowing very little room to manoeuvre, less it water down the film’s overall message and impact.
We see very little of the characters outside of the small paper walled room where they feed their addiction - only Abe has any real meaningful interaction with other characters, once her and Kichizo’s relationship has started. The first of these encounters is with a local teacher, as Abe indulges in her former profession as a prostitute in order to earn money to continue her and Kichizo’s lifestyle. This again heightens the similarities of their relationship to that of drug addicts, willing to do anything to continue their lifestyle. The second encounter, and also the most controversial element of the film, sees Abe chasing with two naked children around a room. After chasing the children for some time, Abe reaches out and pulls the small boy by his penis causing him, understandably, to cry out. This scene is included in the UK release of the film in an edited form, where by the shot has been optically zoomed to cut out the bottom of the image. This optical zoom was at the behest of the then director of the British Board of Film Classification James Ferman in order to keep this pivotal moment in the film. Its inclusion lets audience knows that Abe is emotionally and mentally unbalanced as she commits an act that is appalling by anyone’s standards.
The score by Minoru Miki is minimalistic, with a lot of the film’s music coming from diegetic sources, such as the geisha’s instruments as they entertain Kichizo and Abe. This minimalist approach complements the film well, with its soft sounds and recurring notes adding to the compounding feeling of repetition, and the dependency of the two protagonists on one another.
The Realm Of The Senses is not a film for everybody, and with its unrelenting visuals and narrow characterisation, it may leave some unfulfilled and other disgusted. However, the film does deliver a powerful emotional experience – and one that is not easily forgotten.
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