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* {{allrovi movie|24653}}
* {{allrovi movie|24653}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|in_the_realm_of_the_senses}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|in_the_realm_of_the_senses}}
* {{jmdb title|1976|cz004680}}
* {{ja icon}} ''[http://www.jmdb.ne.jp/1976/cz004680.htm In the Realm of the Senses]'' at the Japanese Movie Database

{{Nagisa Oshima}}


[[Category:1976 Japanese films]]
[[Category:1976 Japanese films]]

Revision as of 08:54, 26 January 2013

"Ai no corrida" redirects here. For the song, see Ai No Corrida (song).
In the Realm of the Senses
Japanese theatrical poster
Directed byNagisa Oshima
Written byNagisa Oshima
Produced byAnatole Dauman
StarringEiko Matsuda
Tatsuya Fuji
CinematographyHideo Ito
Edited byKeiichi Uraoka
Music byMinoru Miki
Distributed byArgos Films
Release dates
  • 15 September 1976 (1976-09-15) (France)
  • 16 October 1976 (1976-10-16) (Japan)
  • 1 April 1977 (1977-04-01) (United States)
Running time
108 minutes
CountriesJapan
France
LanguageJapanese
Box office1,424,906 kr

In the Realm of the Senses (Japanese: 愛のコリーダ, Ai no Korīda, literally Bullfight (Template:Lang-es) of Love;[1] French: L'Empire des sens) is a 1976 French-Japanese romantic drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima.[2] It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe.[3] It generated great controversy during its release;[3] while intended for mainstream wide release, it contains scenes of unsimulated sexual activity between the actors (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda, among others).

Plot

In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji), molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments, drinking, and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife and family to pursue his affair with Abe. Abe becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds he is most excited by being strangled during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Abe then severs his penis and writes, "Sada Kichi the two of us forever," in blood on his chest.

Cast

  • Eiko Matsuda as Sada Abe
  • Tatsuya Fuji as Kichizō Ishida
  • Aoi Nakajima as Toku
  • Yasuko Matsui as Tagawa Inn manager
  • Meika Seri as Matsuko
  • Kanae Kobayashi as Old geisha Kikuryū
  • Taiji Tonoyama as Old beggar
  • Kyôji Kokonoe as Teacher Ōmiya
  • Naomi Shiraishi as Geisha Yaeji
  • Komikichi Hori as Mitsuwa Geisha

Title

The film was released under In the Realm of the Senses in the U.S. and the U.K., and under L'Empire des sens (Empire of the Senses) in France. The French title was taken from Roland Barthes's book about Japan, L'Empire des signes (Empire of Signs, 1970).[1]

Controversy

Strict censorship laws in Japan would not have allowed the film to be made according to Oshima's vision.[3] This obstruction was bypassed by officially listing the production as a French enterprise, and the undeveloped footage was shipped to France for processing and editing. At its première in Japan, the sexual activity was optically censored using reframing and blurring.

In the United States, the film was initially banned upon its première at the 1976 New York Film Festival, but later screened uncut; a similar fate awaited the film when it was released in Germany. The film was not available on home video until 1990 although it was sometimes seen uncut in film clubs.

The British Board of Film Censors, at the time of its first limited screenings in the UK, recommended it be shown under private cinema club conditions to avoid the need for cuts to be made, but only after the Obscene Publications Act had been extended to films (in 1977) to avoid potential legal problems.[4] More recently the BBFC has granted the film an "18" certificate (suitable for adults only), leaving all of the adult sexual activity intact, but ordered that a shot showing a prepubescent boy having his penis pulled as punishment be reframed. The scene was zoomed in so just the reaction of the boy is shown.[5] The cut was finally waived in 2011.[4] The film is available in completely uncut form in France, the United States (including the current The Criterion Collection DVD), the Netherlands, and several other territories.

In Canada, when originally submitted to the provincial film boards in the 1970s, the film was rejected in all jurisdictions except Quebec. It was not until 1991 that individual provinces approved the film and gave it a certificate. However, in the Maritimes the film was rejected again as the policies followed in the 1970s were still enforced.

Due to its sexual themes and explicit scenes, the film was cause of great controversy in Portugal after it was aired on RTP. Some deemed it inappropriate even for the watershed slot, and some even appreciated its airing, like the priest who was Archbishop of Braga D. Eurico Dias Nogueira who said he 'had learned more in 10 minutes of the film than in his entire life'. The film was aired again in RTP2, but was almost not noticed.[6]

Themes

The film does not so much examine Abe's status as a folk hero in Japan ("Pink film" director Noboru Tanaka's film A Woman Called Sada Abe explores this theme more directly) as the power dynamics between Abe and Ishida. Many critics have written[according to whom?] that the film is also an exploration of how eroticism in Japanese culture is often morbid or death-obsessed.[citation needed] Oshima was also criticized for using explicit sex to draw attention to the film, but the director has stated that the explicitness is an integral part of the movie's design.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Turim, Maureen (1998). The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 126–127. ISBN 0-520-20666-5.
  2. ^ Fountain, Clarke. "In the Realm of Passion". Allmovie. Retrieved December 8, 2012.
  3. ^ a b c Sandra Buckley, ed. (December 14, 2001). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Japanese Culture. Routledge. p. 9. ISBN 0-415-14344-6.
  4. ^ a b Case Study: L'Empire des Sens (In The Realm Of The Senses), Students' British Board of Film Classification page
  5. ^ http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=372337
  6. ^ http://www.infopedia.pt/$o-imperio-dos-sentidos
Sources
  • Buehrer, Beverley (1990). "In the Realm of the Senses (1976) Ai no Koriida". Japanese Films: a filmography and commentary, 1921-1989. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland. pp. 222–225. ISBN 0-89950-458-2.
  • Marran, Christine (2007). "Why Perversion Is Not Subversion: Tanaka Noboru's The True Story of Abe Sada and Oshima Nagisa's In the Realm of the Senses". Poison Woman: figuring female transgression in modern Japanese culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 150–161. ISBN 0-8166-4727-5.
  • Kenny, Patrick T. M. (2007) Conflicting Legal and Cultural Conceptions of Obscenity in Japan: Hokusai's Shunga and Oshima Nagisa's "L'Empire des sens". Earlham College thesis
  • Durgnat, Raymond (1985). "In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no Koriida)". In Frank N. Magill (ed.). Magill's Survey of Cinema: Foreign Language Films; Volume 3. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press. pp. 1475–1479. ISBN 0-89356-243-2.
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