I don’t know how you’re watching this film publicly in a cinema. It’s too arousing, I would lose my mind. In the Realm of the Senses (1976) is undoubtedly one of the most erotic films in cinema history. It is difficult to watch and maintain full bodily composure. I am imagining the people sitting nearby you: heavy-breathing, swallowing, crossing and un-crossing their legs.

This film will make you believe in pure physical attraction, again.

The opening shot is a confrontational stare from Sada Abe, laying alone, her eyes piercing into the camera lens. The final shot comprises of Sada Abe and her lover, Kichizō Ishida, laying together. Despite the circumstances, there is no doubt that she got what she wanted. The sexual fantasy of the female lead has been realised.

The plot is relentlessly driven by intense physicality. There is minimal foreplay, kissing or talking between the lovers. Sada Abe’s whole body shakes compulsively between pleasure and pain, she drowns repeatedly in snow, cum and salty tears. Kichizō Ishida gives her head in the rain. Their bodily senses are constantly alert, and hungry. In the alienation and bodily dissociation of living in the modern city, the notion of living according to physical desire becomes unimaginably romantic.

Passion is pursued to its limits: the death drive kicks in. It seems logical in the film for this to happen; the all-encompassing physical pursuit of passion becomes so extreme that the body will do anything to acquire it. There isn’t the usual distinction between love and sex, sex and violence. As the story unfolds, tepid moral boundaries are willingly cast aside. Difficult to imagine, perhaps. But there’s no mistaking love, love of an almost exclusively sexual nature. Don’t worry about me, just enjoy yourself. This line near the end of the film always knocks me out. Because Kichizō Ishida really means it. And he knows what it will mean.

The concluding scene includes a voice over from the director Nagisa Ōshima, in the style of Jean-Luc Godard at the end of Vivre sa vie (1962). He delivers a brief history of the real-life historical figure of Sada Abe, a Japanese geisha and sex worker. She cut off her lover’s penis and carried it around in her kimono, then faced prison-time and life-long scandal. Ōshima’s interjection reminds us that the film is rooted in truth, that sex onto death is real. When In the Realm of the Senses was in-development, Ōshim allegedly searched for Abe. After a long search, he found her, hair shorn, in a nunnery.

In the Realm of the Senses was the first unstimulated hardcore film released in Japan, heavily-censored upon its domestic theatrical run. Only the actors’ heads were visible, a thick black bar covered the rest of the screen. The film was co-produced by Anatole Dauman, co-founder of Argos Films, a legendary independent film production company. Dauman asked for an “erotic film,” and was surprised to receive the resulting film, which instead was considered to be pornography. In France, apparently, there is a difference.

The film is a genuine sexual love story. It is also important to note the extremely obvious: not all sexual violence is the outcome of love and passion. But here, it is. It is still problematic, for sure, but it just is. Have you ever desired someone so much that you were moved to death? How much of yourself are you willing to surrender to sexual desire? Where are your limits, restraining your pursuit of desire? This is a film about what happens when there are no limits.