Corrida Aka In The Realm Of The Senses -1976- [better] — Nagisa Oshima - Ai No

To understand In the Realm of the Senses , one must understand the climate in which it was made. By the mid-1970s, Japan had undergone rapid economic growth, morphing into a modern, capitalist powerhouse. However, beneath the veneer of efficiency and progress lay a rigid, patriarchal society that repressed individual expression. Ōshima, a staunch leftist and intellectual, was deeply critical of this establishment.

To understand the film, one must first understand its context. Oshima was the enfant terrible of the Japanese New Wave, a filmmaker whose work ( Death by Hanging , Boy , The Ceremony ) relentlessly critiqued the vestiges of Japanese militarism, the complicity of the imperial family, and the repressive nature of post-war capitalist society. He sets In the Realm of the Senses in 1936, the year of the February 26th Incident, a failed coup d’état by young militarist officers seeking to restore Shōwa-era divine authority. This was the apogee of Japanese ultranationalism, a period of rigid social hierarchy, patriarchal control, and preparation for total war. To understand In the Realm of the Senses