The synopsis ("Less a work of pornography than of politics, In the Realm of the Senses is a brave, taboo-breaking milestone.") suggested a sort of Story of O-descent into debauchery, but set against an increasingly turbulent political climate of 1936 Japan. I was rather disappointed that the time and place are almost entirely irrelevant to the film's narrative, though being a based-upon-a-true-story film, the setting was relevant to the original events being recreated. In any event, that narrative is a very graphic depiction of escalating sexual kink and depravity so at least that part was accurate.

Eiko Matsuda is fearless as Sada Abe (how perfect a name, evocative of the Marquis de Sade!), a woman with a truly insatiable sexual appetite. It's easy to dismiss the film as pornography masquerading as art, especially early on in the film when the sex is all still in good fun. As the story wears on, however, and as the sex takes its toll on Kichi (a charming and game Tatsuya Fuji), we realize that the whole impetus behind dramatizing the 1936 scandal is to create a cautionary tale that too much of even something as pleasurable as sex can, indeed, be unhealthy.

Donald Richie argues in his essay, In the Realm of the Senses: Some Notes on Oshima and Pornography:

"This wasn’t two actors trying to titillate us, as in the pink film; the hard-core film Oshima was inventing would be about two real people who are titillating each other. He wanted a politicized eroticism rather than a pornographic performance."

Richie is quite right. Whatever excitement the viewer may find in the sex on screen is incidental. We're not watching a performance by exhibitionists seeking to engage us. We're not even voyeurs here, because neither anyone on screen nor the camera care that we're there. It plays more as a documentary than as anything intended to arouse us.

It is unfortunate that the film eschews Sada's biography in order to focus exclusively on her sexual cravings that led to her notoriety. Of course, I also just watched Young Mr. Lincoln which only teased about Honest Abe's courtship of Mary Todd or his famed debates with Stephen Douglass, focusing instead of a (fictionalized) part of his life rarely considered part of the lore. Ai no korîda elected instead to showcase only the parts of Sada's story that were already well-known because of their sensationalist nature.

Beyond its scarcity of information about Sada, I also have to ding the film for some plot points that go unresolved. For instance, Kichi's actual wife is brought up by a terribly jealous Sada throughout but we never see anything further about her. Does she even care that Kichi has left her? For that matter, what of Sada's husband?

Perhaps the most peculiar scene in the entire film is the one in which Sada sits on the floor as two nude children run around her in circles. The scene ends with her grasping the boy's penis, causing him to yell about it hurting. Beyond the shocking nature of the scene, it's also a complete non-sequitar. Who are these children? Why are they even with Sada, much less nude? What came of the incident?

Story-wise, then, I confess to being rather unimpressed by Ai no korîda, which squandered a lot of content would have certainly elevated the film. Still, it's not fair to critique a film for what it isn't, and for what is on the screen I have to confess: it's genuinely captivating and I don't imagine I will ever forget the intensity of Eiko Matsuda's performance. It's the power of her performance that doesn't just make the film work, but resonate.

Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses] entered my Flickchart at #194/1428