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May 31, 2009

In the Realm of the Senses

If you think of the Criterion Collection the way I do — as something of an ongoing film education — then In the Realm of the Senses is probably the first film by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima you’ll ever see. It’s certainly his most famous project, and in that respect, it’s a logical place to start. The Criterion guys have even made the introduction easier on audiences by featuring a new commentary by Japanese film scholar Donald Ritchie on both the DVD and Blu-ray editions that functions more as an overview of the director’s career than a direct essay on the film itself.

But as luck would have it, the release coincides with a traveling Oshima retrospective organized by James Quandt of the Cinematheque Ontario, which helps put the film in context. And a good thing, too, because In the Realm of the Senses is an extreme case — the story of an amour fou between a hotel owner and one of his maids that builds to strangulation, S&M and the most personal of keepsakes (perhaps the only art film capable of challenging Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist in the genital-mutilation department) — and I’d hate to imagine going through life thinking all of Oshima’s films were like that.

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Posted by Peter Debruge at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)