O Império dos Sentidos

'Empire Of The Senses' is one of the least seen and much debated movies of the Seventies. "Least seen" because in many countries, including the one I live in, it has been banned, or only available in censored versions for many years. This movie divides people - those that like it hail it as ART, those that don't dimiss it snobbishly as PORN. Both camps are fooling themselves! 'Empire Of The Senseless' is BOTH.

Is it "serious"? Yes. Is it voyeuristic and prurient? Yes. Is it a masterpiece? Not quite. Is it worth watching? Very much so. In fact I'd say it was essential viewing for anyone interested in extreme or taboo-breaking movies.

The Seventies were the decade where the boundaries of screen sex, violence and disturbing imagery were repeatedly stretched. Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs' and 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia', Bertolucci's 'Last Tango In Paris', Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver', Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange',were all milestones, and the the art movies of Herzog, Warhol, Pasolini, and Jodorowsky battled it out with the horror and exploitation of Russ Meyer, Dario Argento, John Waters,and David Cronenberg. Add to that the unexpected crossover success of 'Deep Throat' and the very existence of shockers like 'Ilse, She Wolf Of The SS' and 'Cannibal Holocaust', and what do you get? The artificial and meaningless divisions of genres, "high art" vs "trash", new ways of thinking vs new ways of making money, it was all on the table. For one brief decade it looked like a brave new world.

Then everything that was gained was lost - Spielberg and Simpson/Bruckheimer cleaned up (financially and aesthetically), and things have never been the same since. Watch 'Empire Of The Senseless' with that in mind. It may be flawed - you'll be alternatively fascinated and bored - but it is an important movie from an important period in movie history.

I saw this film the first time in the movies in holland about 78; I was sitting next to a nice girl wiht her boyfriend and felt terribly upset. I knew this was very real. Not romantic at all. It shows what sex can do to people and although in the ending the dramatics are overdone to my taste; this is a classical tragedy. The acting is incredible; i think the one big problem making movies showing real sex that the actors can't cope with it. These actors could. Everybody who can't see through the pornografic explicities is sexually unfree and morally limited. This film isn't a happy one and doesn't show us the freedom that sex can bring us; it shows the slavery which sex can bring about; it's problably the best film ever about sex addiction there is. It's a problem that is hardly publicly debated; or if in the hands of Christian crusaders, who want to take us all the fun. In other critics you read about th Art question : "is this Art?" Not an important question, but for me it is; it has learnt me very much about the human condition and how we cope with it.

This movie was quite a shocker when my friend and I rented it a few years back. It was clear from the first explicit sex scene that this movie was going to be different from the types of movies my friend and I were generally used to.

After having viewed it recently again, and this time focusing more on the intrinsic value of the film rather than just on the shocking images alone like I had the first time I viewed it, I was surprised to find a dark, disturbing psychological drama about sexual obsession that really held my interest. It is interesting to note how the male and female leads, who both seem emotionally sterile to the world around them and are barely communicative towards one another in the traditional and normal sense, are inseparably bonded by a strange and sexual attraction they have for eachother. It is a fatal attraction of the darkest kind I've ever witnessed in a movie.

This movie is definitely not for all tastes or who are easily offended by graphic scenes of sex. But for those adventurous souls looking for something different and interesting, I recommend this film. Nagisa Oshima's other films of interest are Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and the recent Taboo.

It's clear that a lot of people can't get past the explicitness of this film, which is a shame. I recall a lot of embarrassed giggling last time I saw it at the cinema. The art/pornography debate seems futile to me - this is a film about an obsessive sexual relationship/love affair and it tells it like it is. But it's about as far away from the likes of "Debbie Does Dallas 26" as you can get. The film is clearly serious in intent and there is a lot of beauty in it.

The subtle political content/context of the film is often overlooked - some of the few scenes shot outside the bedroom show groups of soldiers marching the other way from the direction our characters travel - and we all know where the rising Japanese militarism and nationalism of the 1930's led.

I think the best comparison is probably with a film like "Last Tango in Paris" which dealt with similar themes in a similar way - and was probably also pretty boring for those with a short attention span.

There is nothing in cinema that I can think of that compares to In The Realm Of The Senses. It is in a class of its own: beautiful, tender, sensual, erotic, horrifying. I can still remember the shock of seeing it perhaps twenty years ago: not just at the explicitness of the images, in every sense, but at the extraordinary passion and honesty of the two central performances, and Oshima's direction.

Despite the violent nature of the film, and the fact that it is based on a true event, I cannot think of another film that so truly captures the intensity of any emotional and sexual relationship at some point in its incarnation. If you have ever felt love and desire at their most powerful - the wish not to possess someone, but to become part of them and share with them how they experience the world - then you will recognize that feeling here. While certainly not a map for any relationship you might wish to have (I pray!), this film says more about what it means to be a man or woman than any other film I have seen.