Ai no Korrida (In the Realm of the Senses)
Ooshima Nagisa Class Notes
Week 13
Ero Guro
Ai no Korrida (In the Realm of the Senses)
Ooshima Nagisa
BEFORE FILM
Oshima's dislike of films made in Japan earlier
Feels they are not important or look at important issue
Film is very strong, Could not have been made in Japan in then Since Meiji outlawing of showing sex organs (to acquiesce to Western morality) and then later by US constitution
Film was siezed by US customs when it was to be shown at a film festival in NY
Multiple readings
Film may send many messages depending on which symbols are chosen and what meaning is associated with them
Minimalism (relation to Kyogen and Noh)
Color symbolism
Scopophilia - voyeurism: A desire to look at something
Genres often associated almost defined by specific events which we "desire to see":
Westerns - show down
Science fiction - technology
Horror - monstrous
Pornography - sex>br>
HOW can porn be raised to level of art?
CAN YOU SEPARATE PERFORMERS FROM PERFORMANCE
In a circus the actual performer does the act seen. What problems are there with nudity and eroticism and sex
Color coding: Watch for prevalence of the color red in the film. What possible symbolism does that have? Is this universal?
AFTER FILM
Voyeurism
Voyeurism and object desired
Voyeurs watch sex
Is the film a discourse on voyeurism
Sex and violence as allegory (interesting since it is usually the other way around - things represent sex.
Sex to arts
Shamisen
Dance
Ukiyo-e
Sex as performance
Fake wedding
Geisha watch wedding and consummation at wedding geishas are observers, but become performers. Audience is also voyeuristic should they become actors as well?
Sex becomes performance
The Inn becomes theater
People watch acts
Kimono becomes curtain to genitals as performers
Obi-kiri (who opens the kimono - man aggressive; woman acceptance)
Color codes: red = sexuality
on kimonos
lighting
sex organs
red cord from obi used in strangulation
Oshima interested in breaking tabus
By making private acts "public" both in film and outside of film private and tabu can not exist.
IN FILM: OUTSIDE OF FILM
Menstrual blood Showing sex acts forbidden in Japan
Female sexuality
Role changes
Woman -> more dominant Sada starts passively being called but becomes more dominant and sadistic insatiable
Man -> more submissive Calls for Sada, winds up submissive and masochistic
Sado's desires become more and more dominant appears with knife in mouth threatening castration.
Wants to have his organ always inside. Constant demand for sex is hers.
Insatiable => impossible situation for male.
Male organ moves from symbol itself to being one of her pleasure
Sex and exchange of fluids
Becomes like food and eating (sexual appetite, sexual hunger)
Food in film:
Uses vagina as "sauce dish"; episode with egg (parody of reproductive functions). Parody as a kind of humiliation => sado-masochism, rape, violence and castration
Indications of growing female sexuality:
Lesbian scenes
Impotent men indicates a release of violent uncontrolled female sexuality
Violence=> possessiveness and jealousy
Seduction => bullfight
Relationship between matador and bull = Sada and Kichi.
Sex with older women who are like mother (want to feed him "Eat" - he rapes her)
Later he has sex with older geisha and says he felt he was having sex with dead mother. Both then reveal that their mothers are dead. A kind of necrophiliac incest problem
SCENE WITH GEISHA INVITED BY SADA (older woman no problem of jealousy, allows Sada to become voyeur - compare scene with wife which leads to murderous fantasy)
TWO PEOPLE BECOME ONE
Tristan & Isolde
"No more Tristan; No more Isolde; Tristan Isolde, Isolde Tristan"
"and this little word 'and'" that binds Tristan to Isolde and makes them one
Sexual liberation tied to political liberation
Danger of fantasy becoming real
Merger of masculinity and femininity Also in other films like
Beauty as danger (Goheitta) Androgenous leads of Diary of a Shinjuku Burglar"
Goheitta homosexual story
Excess and obsession
Liberation may be fine, but what happens when it goes to excess?
The implications of military and empire (see pun with "realm") building going to excess shown by the appearance of the troops.
Many interpretations of film:
Most rely on middle section and avoid violent acts
Often interpretation has to do with liberating female sexuality and desires
Ending tacked on interpretation as male affirmation of this to the point of subservience
Man becomes happy to be desired object as indicated by last act of acceptance of his being killed
The castration is less a castration than the ultimate fetishism.
Other interpretations involve equation of excessive militarism and empire building with Excessive sexuality.
Does film raise "porn" to a level of erotic art or is the film not erotic, but uses overt sexuality as a metaphor for viewing tabued subjects in society?
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