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In The Realm Of The Senses
(Ai No Corrida)
Japan/France - 1976
Directed by Nagasi Oshima

Based on a true incident in 1930s Japan, Nagasi Oshima's film is probably the ultimate in the "is it art or is it porn" debate. For while Ai No Corrida is almost certainly the most sexually explicit film (legally) available in this country, it is as likely to appeal to the art-house as to the porno audience. Most of its running time consists simply of the various couplings between the two main characters and others but the whole way in which Oshima deals with his subject matter is hardly that of a porn director.

A servant and former prostitute, Sada, becomes infatuated with her employer Kizicho, a businessman, after seeing him and his wife make love. Soon Kizicho becomes obsessed with Sada as well. Their relationship becomes more and more intense, with Sada assuming the dominant role and Kizicho proving less and less able to match her sexual demands. Eventually he consents to being strangled whilst having sex in the hope of attaining ultimate sexual fulfilment. Sada then cuts Kizicho's penis off, wandering around with it for a few days until she is finally found.

With this plot, Ai No Corrida could be seen as challenging the usual male/dominant/active and female/submissive/passive dichotomies and, by emphasising the links between sex and death, Kizicho goes far beyond the sort of ideas that a Russ Meyer is likely to raise. The actual direction, with its long takes and fairly static camera, further works to distance us from the action on screen and reflect on what it all means.

So if anyone asks you, Ai No Corrida is art not porn. You can legitimately go see it, without feeling guilty. But, if you want further justifications then how about Oshima's long history of making political films, frequently focusing on those marginal(ised) within Japanese society; or the long court case Ai No Corrida embroiled him in as he valiantly attempted to overturn his countrys strict obscenity laws; or the subsequent development of a whole genre of politicalporno films in Japan...

Runtime:  105 Minutes

Review by Keith H Brown
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98
Copyright © 1995-1998 Edinburgh University Film Society

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