"A Girl like you can stab a man's heart without a knife, huh?" Kichizo to Sada
☆☆☆☆☆ Masterpiece
Ai No Korida - In the Realm of the Senses (1976) takes erotic passion to the outer limits.
Directed by Nagisa Oshima.
Starring Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda.
Ai No Korida, is as close as you can come to a feature film being porno. From the beginning this film dives into full, real sex and never looks back. The most amazing thing is that there is a deep and disturbing story lurking in the background that slowly emerges from within the sex. Each sexual encounter gets more intense, fetish and dangerous.
Nagisa pulls off the impossible by keeping the film sex from venturing into pornography. A feature film whose sex scene repeatedly cross into porno is La Vie D 'Adele - Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) directed by Abdellatif Kechiche. Oshima avoids pornographic territory in his sex scenes, because the graphic sex is the story. Abdellatif's sex scenes have nothing to do with the his story. If you removed the sex scene's from Abdellatif's film it would not effect the story in the least. If you remove or shorten any sex scenes from Nagaisa's film you lose the story and narrative.
The lead actors Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda do an extraordinary job of revealing their inner selves through their sexual encounters. As an actor who has done many love scenes without going into real sex I found myself thinking about the research needed for the role. Sex scenes are as hard as comedy in terms of timing and subtext. If done wrong it looks fake and audience members will know, because they are human and have done sex many times before. In this case the sex is real, so as an actor you have to really open up your inner self, as well as your physical self. The sex in each scene are real and graphic, so it will have to have meaning for you and your scene partner, so the audience can relate to the sex. As an actor I would only do a film role like this if I trusted the director to guide me. I would trust my scene partner to let go and go as far as I would dare go physically and mentally. I can't tell you how many times a director has had to recast a role, because actors could not get fully nude on a public stage. Think its easy to do a love scene in your birthday suit? Go ask your sister or brother to do a sex scene with you and have your mom or dad direct you both in front of your neighbors and relatives and friends. I have to tip my hat to Nagisa, Tatsuya and Eiko for making such a brave, open and utterly mesmerizing film. Ai No Korida - In The Realm of The Senses should be in your film library. Enjoy!
Trivia - The film is based on a real story that happened in Japan in 1936.
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