In the Realm of the Senses

Nagisa Oshima
1976

Easily the most frankly sexual non-porn film I've seen to date. Oshima's notoriously torrid affair puts a tranquilized eye on the obsessed and frequent bedroom frolics of a couple willfully insulating themselves from Japan's rapid pre-war militarization. As much an intellectual challenge as an expressive work of art Oshima attempts to meld human passion with the clinical physicality of bumpin' uglies by combining familiar cinematic romance, with an almost medical sense of anatomy. To say the actors put in courageous performances is an understatement, and unlike the vacant tendencies of hambone pornstars Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda believably convey their roles while engaged in constant, extreme intimacy. Compared to this film Chloe Sevigny's much ballyhooed blowing of Vincent Gallo in "The Brown Bunny" (2003) seems far less daring given Oshima's precedent.