In the Realm of the Senses
愛のコリーダ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
The Sada Abe affair as unsimulated art film, processed in France and shown in Japan cut and blurred; the book of its script led to an obscenity trial.
Tokyo, 1936. Sada Abe, who once worked as a prostitute, takes a job as a live-in maid at the Yoshidaya, a restaurant in Nakano. She and its master, Kichizo Ishida, are drawn to each other at once, and they start meeting in corners of the house behind the back of his wife, Toku. When the affair comes out, they leave the Yoshidaya together and shut themselves away in a room at an assignation house.
Geisha are called in to stage a mock wedding, and after that the lovers barely leave the room. They drink, send for more geisha, hardly eat, and have sex by day and by night, whoever happens to be watching. When the money runs out, Sada goes to her patron, a schoolmaster named Omiya, and sleeps with him for it. Her need to have Kichizo entirely to herself keeps growing. She cannot bear him going back to his wife, and when he does, she meets his return with a knife.
They begin to choke each other during sex to heighten the pleasure, and the game escalates. One day Sada pulls too hard and Kichizo nearly suffocates; he tells her he will go home to the Yoshidaya for a while to recover. Rather than lose him, Sada resolves to kill him and keep him. In their last night together she strangles him with a sash until he is dead. Then she cuts off his genitals and lies down beside his body. A narrator relates that for four days she carried what she had cut from him from one inn to the next, and that when she was arrested, her face was radiant.
Starring
Eiko Matsudaas Sada Abe
A former prostitute working as a maid, whose love for her employer turns into a need to possess him completely.
Sada Abe’s story
Sada is new at the Yoshidaya. When the head maid sneers at her past, she goes for her with a knife, and the master, Kichizo, calms her; the two are drawn to each other at once. When his wife, Toku, finds out, Sada leaves with him and shuts herself away in a room at an assignation house, barely letting him out of her sight. When the money runs out, she sleeps with her patron, the schoolmaster Omiya. When Kichizo comes back from a visit home, she meets him with a knife. After their strangling game nearly kills him, he says he will go home to recover, and she strangles him with a sash and cuts off his genitals. For four days she carries what she cut from him, and when she is arrested her face is radiant.
Tatsuya Fujias Kichizo Ishida
The easygoing master of the Yoshidaya, who leaves his wife for Sada and gives himself up to her games.
Kichizo Ishida’s story
Kichizo, married to Toku, is the master of the Yoshidaya. He calms the new maid, Sada, when she goes for the head maid with a knife, and soon they are meeting in corners of the house. When the affair comes out, he leaves with her, goes through a mock wedding with geisha for guests, and hardly leaves their room again. When she threatens him with scissors and makes him promise not to sleep with his wife, he laughs and promises, then goes home and does; when she meets his return with a knife, he laughs that off too. He gladly lets her strangle him during sex, further each time. After she nearly suffocates him, he says he will go home for a while to recover. On their last night she strangles him with a sash until he is dead.
Aoi Nakajimaas Toku
Kichizo's wife and the proprietress of the Yoshidaya, who soon finds out about her husband and the new maid.
Kyoji Kokonoeas Omiya
A schoolmaster and Sada's patron, to whom she goes for money when the lovers run short.
Why it matters
In 1936 Sada Abe strangled her lover and cut off his genitals, and the case became a national sensation. Nagisa Oshima retold it as a love story with unsimulated sex. Japan's censorship laws would not let him make it as he wanted, so it was registered as a French production and the undeveloped film was shipped to France to be processed. In Japan it was shown cut and blurred, and the book of its script and stills brought obscenity charges against Oshima and his publisher; they were acquitted in 1979, a verdict upheld in 1982. 'Nothing that is expressed is obscene,' he told the court. 'What is obscene is what is hidden.' The film asks where desire ends and possession begins, and whether two people can build a wholly private world in a country turning to militarism, where someone is always watching. It keeps Sada at the centre and does not look away from where her love leads.