Jakob Morgan

Professor McRoy
Controversial Cinema
10 March 2021
After Death, Will They Part?
Director Nagisa Ōshima’s 1976 film In the Realm of the Senses has earned a reputation as
one of the most controversial films of all time. The film tells the story of a deviant sexual
relationship between a man and woman in 1930’s Japan, a relationship which quickly becomes
deeply unhealthy and, ultimately, fatal. In this micro theme essay I will take a moment to discuss
the relationship between our female lead, Sada Abe, and her lover Kichizo Ishida. Join me, won’t
you?
Kichizo is the owner of a inn or ryokan in Japan, a married man. Abe is a woman in his
employ, one of the many maids and servants supervised by Ishida’s wife. Kichizo takes a liking
to Abe from the moment he meets her, that it came as she was threatening to murder one of her
coworkers is perfectly fitting. He begins flirting with her quickly and their relationship is
immediately sexual. The impression we’re given is that this type of behavior is not uncommon
for him, fooling around with the young women who work for him. While it appears that most
everyone is charmed by Ishida, Abe becomes infatuated with him. When she witnesses him
having sex with his wife, her thoughts turn homicidal.
Film is subjective, and Ōshima does not choose to directly spill out every aspect of his
character’s motivations. Nonetheless, I was able to form some ideas about their relationship from
what we are shown. Abe, a prostitute, has no family to speak of. We are left to assume that her
life has been filled with hardship, abuse, and pleasureless sex. I believe that her love for Kichizo
comes from these past experiences. Kichizo is a man of means, someone who can take care of
her and provide her with a type of safety which she has never had before. He “marries” her in a
mock ceremony while the two of them are on vacation having an affair. Now, with a man she
trusts and actually likes, Abe has pleasurable and intimate sexual experiences. This becomes
addicting, the pleasure as well as the fantasy of their relationship which will end when Kichizo
returns home to his real life, and real wife. Sada Abe doesn’t want this fantasy to end, she refuses
to return to the empty existence she has had all her life, and she wants them to be together
forever.
Kichizo’s motivations are less clear to me. He just seems to have a death wish. He
doesn’t care if he dies, he’s just having fun. He cares little for the consequences of his actions. I
can’t be sure, but I think that Ōshima was more interested in Abe than in Kichizo, leaving his
character to be carried far more by Tatsuya Fuji’s tremendous performance than by the script
given to him. Ōshima admits that he had less to work with in terms of what is known of the real
Kichizo Ishida, so what we see of him is entirely an invention. It seems to me that Ōshima may
have written Ishida in such a way as to increase the sympathetic nature of his chosen protagonist,
Abe, as he is written mostly as a catalyst for her actions and even gives her permission/ clemency
for her actions.
In the end, the relationship between Sada Abe and Kichizo Ishida is one built upon
unhealthy motivations. Ishida is seeking pleasure and, perhaps, an escape from his normal life as
a husband and businessman. Abe is escaping her past and seeking a fantasy life in the arms of
Kichizo. From the beginning it could not have ended well, a abhorrent relationship which was
met with an abhorrent end.