In the Realm of the Senses

From: [email protected] (Paul Ryersbach)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.erotica
Subject: in the realm of the senses
Date: 23 Jul 1996 00:11:56 GMT


I recently saw a Japanese film called -In the Realm of the Senses- or
-Realm of the Senses-. This film is the first that I have encountered in
which explicit sexual imagery is shown without any corresponding loss of
integrity of visual and narrative style. In mainstream films there seem
to be very limited sets of conventions through which sexual intercourse
can be represented.

On the one hand, the censorship of frank depictions of
sex confines mainstream filmmakers' ability to truly explore the full
range of implications that the sexual act may have thematically for the rest of
the film. The simple squeemishness of the producers and consumers of
mainstream film with regard to the depiction of the penis and the vagina
by itself vastly limits the ability of a filmaker to maintain the
integrity of the tone of a film that pretends to deal with sexuality. A
comparison made between what it is possible to depict in contemporary
literature and what may be depicted in serious mainstream filmmaking when
the two media are presenting the same story should underline my point
(I hope).

What we seem to end up with as a result of such squeemishness is the
punctuation of the tone that the movie sets up for itself with scenes of
fairly unremarkable soft-core pornography. The tone of these scenes is
not strongly related to that of the film as a whole, but instead seems to
adopt a set of conventions that in no way emenate from the sensibility
that the film develops.

With -In the Realm of the Senses-, the filmmakers do not submit to the
categorical restrictions seperating respectable, censored filmmaking from
exploitative, uncensored filmmaking. The state of nudity or arousal of
the characters in the film is utterly open and is therefore grist for the
mill for the films formality and dramatics. This lack of censorship, even
to the point of showing fellatio and full and clear shots of female
genitalia, allows any potential aspect of the story to be incorporated
into film. Everything is seen with the same gaze so that all the elements
or scenes that comprise the film knit together to form an integrated
whole. There are no ridiculously sudden depatures into impersonal
representational conventions. Integrity of style and mood is maintained
with a concomittant increase in the sophistication of treatment of
subject matter. This is a film that makes it possible to hope for the
advent of a truly erotic cinema without resort to the shrivelled
contributions of soft-core and mainstream productions.

paul ryersbach