A March in the Opposite Direction- Nagisa Oshima's In The Realm of the Senses

            One of the questions often tangled with in regard to film is, “What is art?” Many films are widely considered to be so, while many others are much accepted to be not even close. Still yet are the vast numbers of ‘infamous’ films that have gained their notoriety from popular debate over whether or not they qualify as art, or as obscenity.

            These films have garnered controversy through the frank depiction of sexuality (Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom), violence (Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs), or even politics (Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers).

            Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses features each of these taboos extensively (many would say gratuitously), yet it has never really been debated on these grounds. Of course, there certainly have been many questions raised about it. Is it pornography? Is it exploitation? Is it propaganda? But it has always been recognized as art. This, in and of itself, is a grand accomplishment for a film that, for the thirty-five years of its existence, is still heavily cut and censored in Japan, its own country of origin.

            So the question, “It it art?” does not really need to be asked. In fact, one could probably discuss why Oshima’s film is art for an extended period, but the elegantly gliding cinematography, vibrant colors, and reed-driven shakuhachi score are all self-evident, and self-efficacious. Perhaps the best question to ask is, “Why is In the Realm of the Senses important?”

            In 1976, the film industry in Japan was in a state of deepening crisis. The great directors of the past generation were dwindling. Kurosawa was in an artistic dry spell. Ozu was not nearly as prolific as he had been twenty years prior. Nobuhiko Obayashi was still an experimental filmmaker, largely associated with the ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ in France, whose homeland debut hit House was still a year away from release. To make matters worse, 1975 had brought Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which made such a big splash (pun intended) in Japanese popular culture that all the major studios were clamoring for native directors to make films of the same style (though, not necessarily of the same caliber). The shift caused by Jaws coincided as well with the widespread popularization of pinku eiga or ‘pink film’ (ironically translated literally to ‘blue film’). Pink films were, in a sense, the Japanese version of exploitation. They centered around pulp settings and, specifically, soft-core sex. Even today the restrictions placed on erotica in Japan are remarkably conservative in light of a culture whose art is excessive and unbridled in terms of the level of violence and passionate emotion.

            It is this environment in which director Nagisa Oshima found himself outcast as a pariah. By the mid-1970’s, Oshima had been making films for over twenty years. His modest renown at the time was due to his ability to make impressive movies on less than impressive budgets. And when one views the early films of Nagisa Oshima, there seems to be no reason for his reserved spot on the black list. This leads to the conclusion that his exile is, to a degree, self-imposed (or at least self-caused). He believed he must be an outsider in order to truly affect the farthest reaching boundaries of art. These boundaries, Oshima proposes, are the socially erected enigmas of obscenity and individual repression. He determined to cross and even erase these boundaries to create higher art. The result was In the Realm of the Senses.

            The film is based on the real life story of Sada Abe. A servant girl, 1936, she began an affair with her master Kichizo Ishida. Their sexual relationship escalated until, in May, 1936, Sada strangled Kichizo to death. She was caught by police four days later with his castrated genitals in her purse. Oshima’s film studies the physical nature of their interaction from its fateful beginning to its tragic ending. Kichizo Ishida is played by the inimitable Tatsuya Fuji; and Sada Abe by the impossibly passionate Eiko Matsuda.

            In order to understand the importance of the film, many of the contemporary moors of Western Culture must set aside in favor of the deep-set values of Eastern history- A transcendent journey into a foreign culture, if you will. As aforementioned, Oshima’s film features (a lot of) sexuality, violence in measure, and oh-so subtle layers of political commentary. However, it is not about any of these things, nor is it slave to them. It has sex, but it is not pornographic. It has violence, but is not exploitative. It has commentary, but is not propaganda, or overtly political. It defies such labels because it masters each of these natures to a purpose. The film is not a vehicle for these subjects. Rather, the subjects are vehicles for the film. Is it pornography? Is it exploitation? Is it propaganda? In the Realm of the Senses hides- stores – its importance within these questions.

            The question of the film’s sexual nature has been, perhaps, the most widely discussed at length. One of the stipulations of Japanese society is that film presenting nudity must either blur the privates or not show them at all. Oshima patently refuses to do either. It is here that he begins his first intentional violation of the status quo. As noted Japanese film historian Donald Richie has observed, In the Realm of the Senses does not feature any of the benchmark characteristics that make pornography what it is. While there is plenty of sex onscreen in the film, it is not often lingered on or leered at. The frequent coupling of Sada and Kichizo is part of their relationship, and has nothing to do with our relationship, as the audience, to them. Pornography is exactly the opposite, endeavoring to make viewers part of the experience. Even in modern love stories, from classic romances like Gone With the Wind to recent romantic comedies such as Crazy, Stupid, Love, place the audience in the middle of relationship, and by that method attempt to involve our emotions and tempt us to become invested in the onscreen couple. Oshima seems to know that this is how we work, and he deliberately does the opposite with his film. Our viewpoint is so unnervingly aloof (often literally above in camera angle) that we can do nothing to involve ourselves with the relationship. In this way, both the impassioned couple and the audience are set on a course toward oblivion. Sada and Kichizo are doomed to a tragic end, and we are doomed to watch helplessly as they self-destruct. So the film is not pornography because we are not involved, and one can take no pleasure in watching the tragedy of two unfortunate souls.

            Then there is the question of the film’s violence. In truth, there is really only one scene where violence is explicitly shown (when Sada ‘liberates’ Kichizo’s body from its manhood), but even then it is done almost as an act of love turned obsession. The reality of the violence in the film is much, much more subtle than that. There is an air of violence to the passion shown between the two lovers. But it is not shown. It is not reveled in. It is not detailed. And it is by no means truly excessive. The film’s violence appears in the form of tension, the unknown of what will transpire- the unpredictability of the several silently volatile situations. Subtlety, however, is the exact opposite of what exploitation is. So In the Realm of the Senses cannot be exploitation because it is subtle, because it is nuanced, because it only shows violence when violence must happen. Sada brandishes a number of different of violent symbols: a pair of scissors, her own hands, a kerchief as a choking implement, and at the beginning and end, a carving knife. But even in the ultimate use of any of these, she does not go beyond the briefly effective. Unlike exploitation, there is no need here for anything remotely gratuitous. The focus is not on the act of violence itself, but the motivation behind it: passion, anger, jealously… love.

            Finally, the question of politics poses, perhaps, the most direct answer to the importance of the film. It is also the hardest subject to drag out of Oshima’s passionate masterpiece. Ultimately, the only direct depiction of political struggle in the film is a single short scene that features Kichizo Ishida, dressed in an obviously expensive kimono, walking down a dirty street while soldiers pass. In 1936 Japan was at war with China in a bid for imperial expansion. The entire economy, from the highest station to the lowest, was mobilized for the glory of Japan. Down the street marches a company of soldiers. The town’s residents follow them. And Kichizo goes the opposite direction. There are several obvious layers to this imagery. For instance, it is a visual representation of the couple’s lack of place in society. It may demonstrate Kichizo’s own conflict with the expectation that he be faithful to his wife even when he is in love with a forbidden woman. But the most poignant statement in the scene is one that connects back to director Nagisa Oshima. Kichizo moves counter to the expectations placed on him by society as Oshima does by making the film itself. His blunt portrayal of a human physical relationship not only ignored visual boundaries, it ignored emotional ones and political ones. ‘Life is not censored’ he seems to say, ‘so why should art be?’

            In the Realm of the Senses is important precisely because it is unveiled, uncensored, unadulterated. There is no hidden symbolism. The deeper meaning is the only meaning. The nature of human love, both healthy and unhealthy, is laid bare before the audience. What we see is not sex, violence, or politics, but the simple truth of human emotion. Broken by sin, it is no longer perfect, but we all must grapple with it. We must fight to understand it. We must comprehend it in order accept it as our own.

Sada’s and Kichizo’s escalation of the boundaries of pleasure, then, is not a sexual extreme, nor a violent one. It is an emotional desperation. Rather than face the endless cycle together, they find solace in the ability to face the unknown end with each other instead. This is no better demonstrated than in the final frame of the film where Sada is lying next to Kichizo’s body. On his chest she has written-

“SADA AND KICHI-SAN FOREVER”

The Way Home- A Reflection on Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs

            “Jesus… I killed them all…”

            So is David Sumner’s revelation in the aftermath of the climax in Sam Peckinpah’s less known masterpiece, Straw Dogs. Everything about the film should scream ‘Classic’ or ‘Blockbuster’- Directed by the man who brought The Wild Bunch to the big screen, starring Dustin Hoffman (fresh off The Graduate), and sporting the ever-popular style of the spaghetti western, Straw Dogs was poised to become a gritty cornerstone of the thriller genre.

            But Peckinpah never has been one to play to the mainstream status quo. What he brought to the screen with Straw Dogs in December of 1971 was more shocking, more brutal, more disenchanting than any of his productions to date, and would never again be rivaled by any of his later films (even the famously drear Pat Garrety and Billy The Kid; or Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). Audiences attending the Cineplex expected to see a modern day western, what they saw instead was a challenging (albeit impressive), probing discourse on the nature of violence, and the meaning of masculinity.

           

            Dustin Hoffman is David Sumner, an American mathematician moving with his new wife, Amy (played by the nubile, not-quite-innocent Susan George) to her home town in rural England. This quaint setting serves well to put the audience immediately at ease. The English countryside is often associated with peacefulness, and escape from the rigors of life in our modern, fast-paced society. This is exactly Peckinpah’s intention, it seems. The delightful gentility of the setting prevails, even when we are introduced to the film’s antagonists with the first ten minutes. It is an unnerving contrast to the ultimate violence played out later. This particular setting contrasts so well that it has been nicked, referenced, and imitated by countless films hence (such as The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (1974) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) a decade later). Perhaps if the events in question were to happen in a more tumultuous environment, they would not be near as distressing as they are.

            Almost immediately after the newlyweds’ arrival in town, we are met with Charlie Venner, Amy’s once-upon-a-time suitor, and his volatile uncle Tom Hedden. Throw in a few untrustworthy men fixing the roof of David’s shed, and the village idiot Henry Niles, and this once peaceful town seems ripe for conflict. It is only too obvious, however, that the tranquility of the couple’s surroundings is simply a veil. We watch as the men David pays to refurbish the shed help him to set up an antique ‘man trap’, which looks remarkably similar to a very large bear trap. We sit idly by as he discovers his wife’s cat strangled and hanging in the closet. And all the while, David Sumner remains passive, even when the workers mockingly call him ‘sir’. Amy spurs him to confront them about the cat, to which he is painfully resistant. He is calm, collected, and reluctant to upset the tranquil order of things in the countryside. And when Amy exclaims, “You are a coward!” we are thinking the exact same thing. This is the first time when Peckinpah hints at a theme that we already believe we know: Manhood is inextricably connected to, and measured by, violence.

            The clock is wound to countdown until the world explodes the moment David’s apparent enemies invite him to go duck hunting. Charlie Venner and his compatriots helping to mend David’s shed designate a spot in the wilderness for him to sit to catch the ducks that they will ‘flush’ his way. In an almost too-well expected turn of events, we realize with him that they have left him there, miles from home, to await what unfortunate events will transpire in his absence.

            It is strangely ironic that the next sequence is often cited as the point at which the film becomes controversial and disturbing, when in fact it is far from the most violent or graphic. Charlie Venner shows up at the Sumner residence and visits his past obsession, Amy. He forces himself upon her. Ultimately, it becomes obvious that all is not as it should be… she begins to enjoy it. We, as the audience, are broadsided with an incredibly unsettling thought. Do we, as movie-goers accustomed to so much violence, enjoy the attack, the rape of our senses, just as Amy does? Is violence a pleasurable diversion to us, instead of the violation that it should be? The juxtaposition of Amy’s rape with David’s guilt over killing an innocent duck compounds our dilemma. The moment is not controversial. It is probing. It is disturbing not because of what it depicts to us, but because of what it reveals about us, the violent nature within ourselves.

            Sam Peckinpah further acquaints us with this disenchantment by not following the incident with any form of closure. Amy doesn’t tell David what happened, and Charlie Venner goes about business as usual. The explosion of violence that we know is coming finds its avenue through a completely unrelated circumstance. Henry Niles, the aforementioned village idiot, runs off at a party with Tom Hedden’s daughter. Tom, Charlie, and the three others (who left David high and dry in the moors) form a group eerily similar to an old west posse to find him, and lynch him. David and Amy find themselves in the middle of the situation by chance when they accidentally hit Niles with their car, and take him home with the intention of trying to get him to a hospital. Inevitably, Tom Hedden and Co. discover Niles’ presence at the Sumner home, and the fight that David must wage is no longer his own. In this moment, Peckinpah surrounds the situation with a sort of pointlessness, a senselessness that the audience cannot comprehend. No one can be in the right. Because of this, the moment in which David becomes a man- “I will not allow violence against this house”- seems completely empty.

            The clock, wound ever too tight, explodes. Tom Hedden shoots the magistrate, who had believed he could resolve the matter by simply talking. In Peckinpah’s world men are violent and the magistrate, ever diplomatic, could not survive it. Amy, who until this point has been pushing David to act, loses her previous objectivity and pleads for Henry Niles to be turned over. Hedden, Venner, and the others begin breaking windows. For David Sumner, the world has turned upside down. He must kill or be killed. Still, the explosion of rage and brutality that he unleashes goes far beyond necessary. The longer the conflict continues, the more senseless it becomes. And David himself escalates it. He begins by simply wiring one attacker’s hands together at the window to effectively trap him. From there, we watch as he boils oil on the stove to use as a weapon, bludgeons attackers with a fire poker, and opens them up with a shotgun. But in the middle of all the chaos, we are still under the preconception that he is simply defending his home. Then, Peckinpah flips the world on us once more.

            Charlie Venner himself rescues Amy from being assaulted (yet again) by one of his own fellow attackers, killing him with a shotgun. In any other film, a less honest film, a fake reality, David and Charlie would reconcile their differences, apologize to each other, and help to clean up the mess. But, Peckinpah seems to say, violence is masculinity, and one has to see it through. David uses the moment to attack Charlie, ultimately putting the over-sized man trap over his head.

            Whom do we root for? For whom do we cheer? Certainly not Amy, her irresponsible flaunting of her sexuality was the root of much of the conflict in the first place. Charlie? Tom Hedden? One cannot side with the dead. And in the end, David understood- to defeat monsters, one must become a monster. For a brief moment, he reflects on what he has done, “Jesus, I killed them all…” How do we make heads or tails of the tragedy, the senselessness?

            Peckinpah’s answer? We cannot. The final lines of the film reflect the aimlessness of human existence, and of violence.

            “I don’t know my way home,” Henry Niles says as David drives him down a deserted road.

            “That’s okay,” David says, “Neither do I.”

My 120 Days of Sodom

            I watch a lot of films. Anyone who knows me can tell you, I watch an inordinate amount of cinema. There are quite a few that I love, plenty that I don’t, and many stick with me for a long time. Then, there is Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Saló o le 120 giornate di Sodoma- Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom.

Saló is truly something unique, different. I could say that I love the film, but how exactly does one love a film of this sort? I could say I hate it, but that just would not be true. It has been days since I watched it, and I have watched plenty of other movies since then. But I cannot get Saló out of my head. Since even the film-literate friends I have may never have heard of this work, I digress. I must first tell you what it is, exactly…

            In the year 1785 AD, Donatien Alphonse Françios Marquis de Sade wrote a short literary opus of libertinism called The 120 Days of Sodom. For those who do not know, the Marquis de Sade was a libertine, which is to say that he philosophically freed himself of any sort of morality except that which satisfied his own whims and desires. In the 18^th Century, being a libertine was considered a philosophical choice. Today, we might simply call it being drastically narcissistic.

            The 120 Days of Sodom was his ‘masterpiece’. It centers around four libertines who imprison 18 youths (9 male, 9 female) and proceed to subject them to 120 days of debasement, torture, humiliation, and deviant sexuality. This literary work has been revered, vilified, praised, censored, and banned. In the early 1970’s, during a time when Pasolini was disillusioned with the success of his previous works, he decided to adapt de Sade’s literary opus for the big screen, with goal to make a film so ‘indigestible’ that it could never be identified with what he called the “consumerist repression” of the neo-capitalism that taken over Italy.

            Pasolini made two major changes to the story, however. Most notably, he moved the setting of these terrible events from 18^th Century France to 1944 Fascist Italy, in the Republic of Saló- the last stronghold of Benito Mussolini’s regime in the final months of World War II. The second major change was to reorganize the story into three separate acts based on different circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno- Il Cerchio di Ossessioni, Il Cerchio di Merda, and Il Cerchio di Sangue.

            The film was released in 1976, shortly after Pasolini was murdered under still mysterious circumstances. It seemed only fitting for the man who created this masterpiece of debauchery to meet his end so theatrically. Roman papers ran spreads with pictures of his corpse on the front page, and with that, Saló was catapulted into history.

            Without saying too much about the films content, I wish to convey my own feelings on the matter. How does one deal with a film that depicts such humiliation and yet presents itself as a work of high art? Indeed Saló is a work of art- one that depicts rape, coprophagia, torture, murder, deviancy, and a horrific sense of detachment, but a work of art nonetheless. I have rolled the images of the film around in my head for days and I cannot expunge it. It just goes to show that some things, once seen, are impossible to be unseen. The only thing one can do is learn how to process it, understand it, deal with it, and yes, even appreciate it. But how can one appreciate a film like Saló? A film that goes out of its way to offend every sensibility we as decent human beings are supposed to have? Especially when to offend is the very goal of the film’s existence. Is there any redemption to be found at all?

            Some may be tempted to label Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom as a horror film. But that could not be farther from the truth. Horror films seek to exploit violence and sex in order to titillate, scare, and thrill the audience. The entire purpose of a horror film is to be a roller coaster ride of adrenaline in not much more than 90 minutes. Indeed, Saló does have some of the trademarks of the exploitation films of the 70’s- extreme violence, sex, etc. But in exploitation, horror, and the like, there is always a tone of… fun. A wink-wink at the audience in the form of campy humor, likeable characters, and a main character to root for. Saló has none of these things.

            The tone of the film is one of cool detachment. We are invited neither to care for the victims, nor root for their triumph. The obvious answer to this might be that we are presented the story from the point of view of the four libertines who are committing these atrocities with the help of their nazi soldiers. But that is not quite it. The libertines are committing their sins with the goal of self-satisfaction. But we feel no pleasure in what they do. We don’t feel anything. The attitude of the film is cold, calculating, and removed. We, as the audience, are introduced to the proceedings from an outside point of view. Pasolini has turned us into the worst kind of audience- the voyeur. We watch the evil, and do nothing about it. We cannot sympathize with the victims, nor laugh with the oppressors. We watch without emotion. In presenting the story this way, Pasolini has made us accomplices to the crimes. And from that, stems the revulsion one feels in watching the film. Not revulsion with the acts committed onscreen, but revulsion with one’s self for letting it happen.

            This is to say nothing of the political message of the film. I have mentioned that Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom manages to offend every human sensibility, and it certainly does. Pier Paolo Pasolini was a devout Marxist. Not a communist, but a Marxist. He believed that even affiliating with established politics such as communism was antithetical to his goal of being a true Marxist. As such, Saló is also a scathing attack on established order and rule. The libertines do not have names, but titles representing four different facets of the ruling class: The Duke, the Bishop, the Magistrate, and the President. With that, Pasolini places the responsibility for the evil squarely on the shoulders of the royalty, the church, the law enforcement, and the business of capitalism. Everything the modern world holds dear to their hearts and minds.

            For the entire duration of the film, we as the audience wait for some sort of salvation, redemption from the tortures we are witnessing. When we finally see that there is no deliverance to be had, that is when we give in, and begin to rationalize. The end of the film comes with each of the poor imprisoned souls being executed in a courtyard, and the four libertines each take turns watching from the palace with binoculars. They are voyeurs, just like us. As humans, we feel that the only way out of the painful guilt we now harbor is to rationalize. We are not like them, they are monsters. They are cruel, inhuman creatures who feel nothing at all. And so we force our further detachment as we watch the senselessness of it all to the haunting strains of “Veris leta facies” (The Joyous Face of Spring), movement 3 of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. We believe at this point that we can deal with the evil. That we are not part of it, we cannot be. We are incapable. Then, Pasolini throws one last punch. The music changes to a happy big band tune, and two of the guards dance with each other.

            “What is your girlfriend’s name?” one asks.

            “Margherite,” the other replies.

            Suddenly, we realize that there is no difference. As the credits roll, we realize that we are just as guilty, just as complicit in the evil. We must liberate ourselves from the guilt.

            That is why Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom is art.