Notational

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In the Realm of the Senses

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.

RIP Nagisa Oshima

This is the most sexually explicit movie I ever saw, outside of pornography. There are all sorts of disturbing things in the movie, and the perspective on patriarchy is ambiguous at best. None the less it is a profound movie, with beautiful cinematography.Psychically claustrophobic and obsessed…somehow related in my mind to Bergman’s masterpiece Persona.