myownpteidaho

this film left me reeling. A simple enough film, it draws the viewer deeper and deeper into a Japanese schoolboy's masochistic obssession and the slow steady conversion of a girl into the sadistic mistress that he needs.Yet the film is not about sex or lust. It is about a passion so deep that it defines one's being. The boy is blessed with that rare honesty - he will not deny himself his passion. He risks exposure, humiliation, hatred, and worst of all, the loss of the one he loves, just to live his way. It makes one feel inadequate when one considers how much we willingly censor our own desires and passions just to 'fit in'. There are moments of exquisite pain in this film, when you can hear hearts shattering, and from these come some of the film's most beautiful moments as well. His seemingly endless devotion to her, her traumatic attempt to rationalize his desire - these are extremes that perhaps each of us have tasted to a lesser degree at some point in our lives. Here, watch them played out to the maximum. If his love is to be called perverse, then let it be so, for maybe love is too great to be normal, to intense to be sane. Performances are riveting from the two leads. Sensitive, sharp and burning with unspoken emotion. The two are infinitely desirable because they are so passionate, so afire. Sensuality and sexuality are redefined, and if you are neither sadistic or masochistic at the start of the film, you will long to be one or the other, or maybe both, by the end.