In the Realm of the Senses

Declaring yourself bored by a movie full of explicit sex may sometimes mark you out as a dreary pseudo-sophisticate, but in this case it's fair enough.

Ai No Corrida is an undeniably powerful, stylish and impressive piece of work.

Unsanitised, worryingly convincing in its sadomasochistic detail, this is seriously provocative cinema, a telling reminder of what it really means to be dangerous.

As the soundtrack moans in sympathy while the deep crimson colours dazzle in delirium, the entire movie comes desperately close to approximating the pell-mell emotional turmoil of sex itself. Not porn, sex.

One of the most extraordinary moments in screen history. Oshima's film widens and deepens the sensual realm.

It was made 33 years ago but Nagisa Oshima's doomed lust classic doesn't look in the least bit dusty. Quite the opposite.

Oshima transgresses on the forbidden nature of sexuality as a private and personal experience. In the Realm of the Senses acts consciously to break down taboos to liberate the audience from their own obsessions.

As an erotic film, it climaxes in the demanding performances of Eiko Matsuda and Tatsuya Fuji, but I suspect that its marathon exercise in obsessive sexual pleasure remains on a fatiguing and thinly dull surface. [Full review in Spanish]

Serenity in intensity, bliss in turmoil, transcendence in total perdition, that, with very modest means, is precisely what Nagisa Oshima has achieved in his very latest film, In the Realm of the Senses.

Time and space are suspended in [director Nagisa] Oshima's beautiful images.