In the realm of the senses

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Movie
German title In the realm of the senses
Original title Ai no korīda
L'empire des sens
Country of production Japan
France
Publishing year 1976
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Nagisa Ōshima
script Nagisa Ōshima
production Nagisa Ōshima
Anatole Dauman
music Minoru Miki
camera Hideo Ito
cut Keiichi Uraoka
occupation

In the realm of the senses ( Japanese 愛 の コ リ ー ダ Ai no korīda ) is probably the most famous film by the Japanese director Nagisa Ōshima . It caused a scandal when it appeared. The film is based on a true story about Abe Sada , which happened similarly in 1936 in Japan.

action

Kichizō is the owner of a geisha house where Abe Sada works as a servant and prostitute. A passionate relationship develops between the two. Kichizō finally leaves his family to be with Sada - he falls for her more and more.

Isolated from the outside world, the two give themselves up completely to limitless sexual desire. Together they dive deeper and deeper into the world of passion and even pain . Her lust breaks all taboos and ultimately leads to Kichizō's death, because Sada kills him during the act of love at his request. The film ends with a penectomy , the cutting off of the penis.

Premiere and seizure

Nagisa Ōshima shot in Tokyo , but had to send the film material to Paris for development and completion "because no Japanese laboratory dared to touch it." (David Robinson)

When the finished film was to be shown at the Berlinale 1976 in Berlin , there was a scandal. After the film was announced by the BZ as “The greatest porn of all time”, a prosecutor attended the premiere along with a judge and two police officers. The public prosecutor confiscated the film as "hard pornography " immediately after the premiere . This was not changed by the opinion of the working group of film journalists at the Berlinale, which certified the film as having "high artistic quality and important political and aesthetic insights".

Legal disputes

It was the first time that a film had been confiscated by the prosecution at a major international festival. Although the scandalous film was received critically in the press, the majority of the media spoke out against a film ban. The then Berlin Justice Senator Hermann Oxfort even saw Berlin's reputation as endangered by the behavior of the public prosecutor's office. The 17th criminal division of the Berlin Regional Court initially rejected a complaint against the seizure, which was based on Section 184 of the Criminal Code. The 12th Large Criminal Chamber of the Regional Court, however, came to the conclusion in its judgment of March 17, 1977 that the film was not pornography. On January 17, 1978, the Federal Court of Justice finally rejected the public prosecutor's appeal . Both courts thus followed Horst von Hartlieb's argument , who appeared as the film's defender.

release

The film was then released in full, although the chairman of the FSK Ernst Krüger and the examiner Ludwig Boersch pointed out that the film was showing sexual practices that the FSK would never have allowed to happen uncut. Regardless of this, In the Realm of the Senses received the title “particularly valuable” from the film evaluation agency . In 1978 the film was shown nationwide in Germany after the Spiegel publisher Rudolf Augstein founded Rudolf Augstein Filmverleih to support it. In Japan, on the other hand, there was only a greatly shortened version to be seen.

Despite explicit sex scenes, In the Realm of the Senses is not considered a pornographic film. Rather, it is the story of a relationship in the course of which people change and gradually lose touch with everyday life. Kichizō, the employer and at the beginning the demanding one, submits more and more. Sada, the servant and subordinate, takes the lead and drives the two towards the tragic end with increasingly extreme sexual desires.

Although Krüger and Boersch feared in their statement that "with regard to In the Realm of the Senses it would hardly be possible to draw a reasonably safe line", nothing changed afterwards in the decision-making practice of the FSK and the Legal Commission. This was then not criticized further, as the media gave prominent scandal films a completely different attention than the usual sex films.

background

  • The film was officially a French production and was also edited in France to circumvent Japanese censorship regulations. However, an error was made in the translation into English. The French title is L'empire des sens . The US-American translator assumed that the French Dans in front of the production material, actually referring to the actors in the film, was part of the title and translated it with In the . The resulting English title In the Realm of the Senses then often served as a template for other national titles, in German, for example, In the Realm of the Senses . The Japanese title chosen by the director Ai no Korīda means bullfight of love , the Japanese Korīda is borrowed from the Spanish corrida (bullfight).
  • An earlier film version of the fact-based story appeared under the title " The Story of Abe Sada " (Jitsuroku Abe Sada) . The director was Noboru Tanaka . The case is also discussed in an episode of Teruo Ishii's episodic film Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa: Ryōki Onna Hanzaishi .

Reviews

  • Lexicon of the international film : "Oshima renounces the narrative embellishment of the plot as well as the psychological motivation of the characters, instead the film describes human sexuality in extreme aesthetic reduction as an uncontrollable, ultimately destructive force."
  • Richard Eder denies the film in the New York Times the quality of a work of art, in this respect it is a clear blunder . If, in the end, the barbaric act also corresponds to the logic of the action, then it lacks any emotional justification.

literature

  • Nicolaus Schröder: Film. The most important works in film history . Gerstenberg visual - 50 classics. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2000, ISBN 3-8067-2509-8
  • Stefan Volk: Scandal films - cineastic excitement yesterday and today . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2011, pp. 170–175 and 199–205. ISBN 978-3-89472-562-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for In the realm of the senses . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2004 (PDF; test number: 49 677 V).
  2. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: “No youth release!” Film censorship in West Germany 1949–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, p. 253
  3. ↑ Stefan Volk: Scandal Films. Cinematic excitement yesterday and today . Marburg 2011, p. 201 ff .
  4. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: “No youth release!” Film censorship in West Germany 1949–1990 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, p. 253 f.
  5. ↑ In the realm of the senses. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 10, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  6. ^ Richard Eder: Screen: 'In Realm of the Senses'; Sexual Obsession Is Theme of Movie From Japan . In: The New York Times . October 2, 1976, p. 14 ( restricted online archive ).