Senses Movie Reviews

Living in the city really takes its toll on me. Although I try to get away, of course I'm busy and can't just go on vacation whenever the urge strikes. I've tried spas, which are great but so expensive. So when I heard about this DVD I decided to give it a try. What can I say? It made my studio apartment feel like it had somehow moved to the beach!

My hints for first-time viewers (I've been playing this almost daily in the background as I go about my day and it's really helped to make me feel less stressed)...

1. Customize the DVD so that it loops continually. You don't even need to sit down and watch it, just having it play in the background it makes an impact.
2. Turn on the natural sounds at low volume and play your favorite relaxing music at the same time...it'll really transform the feel of your space.
3. Use it with aromatherapy. It even inspired me to clean my apartment so I could enjoy it more!

I'll be first in line for Volume 2.

I am in agreement with my fellow reviewer on this page. I am astonished that this movie isn't yet released on DVD. Coming of age story featuring Larenz Tate as a sheltered, introverted pyromaniac teenager, who's best friend is a doll. During summer of 1977, teenager takes family-trip north to Martha's Vineyard, to visit extended family. Larenz Tate, was a little old for this role, even in 94, but he is convincing enough to pull it off. During this trip Tate's character is faced with several issues, including sex and adulthood. He forges a relationship with a neighboring therapist, who explains that being different is not really that bad. He starts to explore his new found sexuality with a naive vulnerability. He succumbs to the selfish demands of the Jada Pinkett character, Laura, who has her own use for Tate. Joe Morton and Glynn Turman, as always give enjoyable performances. Both characters are memorable, since they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Turman, the staunch conservative, and Morton, the ultra-liberal ex Black Panther, who's views clash with Turman. Contrary to what Spike Lee says, this movie is entertaining and funny!!!!!

this a great movie. i can't belive it is not on DVD. I would like to see it on DVD. Who determine what movie goes on DVD??

To understand exactly what writer/director Jeremy Podeswa tries to accomplish with 'The Five Senses,' it's first necessary to know where the idea for this quirky little film originated. After reading Diane Ackerman's remarkable book, 'A Natural History of the Senses,' Podeswa began to ponder ways in which he could translate to film her theme of how modern day life has overstimulated the five human senses to the point where we no longer remember how to appreciate sensation in its purest form -- we've become detached from that which is truly worthwhile in life.

The resulting work embodies the five senses in five major characters who all live and work in the same apartment complex. Each has issues surrounding a particular sense -- one has a hobbled sense of taste while another has a heightened sense of smell, for instance. Around this central theme revolve ancillary stories about a lost little girl and a teenage voyeur who meets his match in a rebellious girl. What these side stories serve to do is to force the main characters to look beyond their own preconceived notions and begin to consider what the world looks like when all five of the senses are fully engaged and appreciated.

If it sounds like a pretentious art-house flick, well, to a degree it is. The plot is there more to facilitate the main theme than to tell a cohesive narrative and everything from the cinematography to the music fairly screams "award winner" (the film was nominated for 9 Genie Awards and won for Best Director). The whole concept of basing the premise of a movie on the five senses is fairly ambitious and I can't really fault the director if the end result seems somewhat forced and contrived at times.

So then, how does it look? The transfer is offered in both full screen and anamorphic widescreen versions with the latter presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The film takes place in environments ranging from dimly-lit rooms with stark shadows to gray, overcast skies -- all of which are handled quite well. Colors are lush, where appropriate, and black levels are very solid allowing for fine shadow detail. It's a DVD from New Line Home Video, so the fact that the picture is near perfect should come as no surprise.

The audio for 'The Five Senses' is presented in English and French Dolby Digital 2.0 mixes. Since the movie is mostly dialogue-driven, don't expect much in the way of dynamic range from the soundtrack. The soundstage is firmly anchored front and center with only a few ambient effects and wisps of music floating to the surrounds. But, voices are always clear and even the faintest whisper in a lover's ear remains audible. Extras on the disc are limited to the theatrical trailer, a few cast and crew bios and filmographies, and a very sparse offering of DVD-ROM content.

I found 'The Five Senses' to be an engaging film -- but one that requires a fair amount of attention to detail. If I had not known going in what the basis for the movie was I would have been hopelessly lost. Performances are, for the most part, quite good and the cast is able to work within the constraints of their particular characters to tell the story. New Line's DVD offers their usual stellar audio and video presentation and is without flaw -- although a few extras would have been most appreciated.

Fans of modern Canadian cinema along the lines of Atom Egoyan's 'The Sweet Hereafter' or Don McKellar's 'Last Night' are sure to enjoy the dynamic character interactions and deft combination of drama, humor, and sexuality. If you're a member of that rare breed then I can recommend 'The Five Senses' without hesitation. For all others I would suggest a rental to be sure that this complicated, and slightly flawed, film is right for you.

It seems that year after year, Canadian cimena becomes the more soulfull in the world. Films like Egoyan's "Exotica" and "Sweet Hereafter" have been aclaimed world wide, but this "The Five Senses" also deserve be praised.

Director-Writer Jeremy Podeswa was very fortunate when he created a metaphor for each sense and used each in the main characters. The metaphors are easy to be detected, but not easy to be understood. You have to pay attention to understand how the main characters deal with 'their' specific sense and what it changes his/her life through the movie.

The cakemaker who cooks tasteless cakes; a doctor who is getting deaf; a masseuse who is losing the touch with her daugther who, by the way, is starting to 'watch' people; and a bissexual man who can smell love. To make things worse --or should I say better-- there is a missing girl, who virtually connects every story -- and senses. If you think it may read very simple, go and check this film. Things here are much more complicated as the look. Using material tthings like cakes, perfumes et al. the filmmaker reach the 'spiritual' level and abstract concepts like love, friendship and family.

The cast deliveries very fine. It is very easy to get involved with all these people and their problems. The best ones are Mary Louise Parker -- as the cook -- and Molly Parker as the mother of the missing girl. Their work is so hearfelt that it is impossible no to care about them.

This is a film for grown-ups. It deals with subtle subjects that touch deep in the audience hearts and souls. Kids looking for some explosions, fights and sex should stay away from this movie.

"The Five Senses" is a profound film about what it means to be human, and about the loss of innocence and the yearning for touch, for comfort, for love. Set in Toronto, it follows the lives of around a dozen characters over a three-day period. The central theme is based on the exploration of the five senses and how these senses or lack of them influence our lives. The main premise is that a toddler has gone missing while under the care of a masseuse's alienated daughter.

The film follows the lives of the people who live in the same building as well as the people that are related to the missing child. Rona, the baker who turns out gorgeous cakes that have no taste and her Italian live-in boyfriend Roberto, an aspiring chef, represent taste. Richard, a French opthamalogist who is going deaf and Gail, a prostitute that he has hired to listen to music with him, explore sound and its absence. 16-year old Rachel is deeply alienated and confused. There are hints to sexual abuse when she was younger, she dropped out of school, and along with her newfound friend Rupert she explores voyeurism and gender roles, representing sight. Robert is a bisexual housecleaner who is desperate for "the right one," so much so that he meets with former lovers to sniff them, believing he has the ability to smell love. Ruth is a widowed masseuse and the mother of Rachel. She has the ability to use touch to soothe others but longs for comfort herself.

For me the most touching story was that of Richard. Having my life revolve around music I have often pondered what would happen if I began to lose my hearing. It is one of the most frightening things that I can think of. Richard makes lists of seemingly ordinary things (thunder, trains, birds) that he wants to listen to one last time in order to catalogue them in his mind. He even calls his daughter in order to tape her voice so he can listen to it again and again. He hires the prostitute Gail to listen to music with him, and with deep tenderness she helps him cope with his advancing hearing loss.

All of the stories are engaging and overlap occasionally. Some of the background details are left sketchy or occasionally absent, but the viewer is left with enough to piece together. This is a movie that requires thinking. It is not a Hollywood fairytale by any means; it is not wrapped neatly and tied with a bow. It is real life, things and people that we know instinctively. The cinematography is stark, with many shadows and cold lighting. It captures the feel of Toronto in fall perfectly, but also highlights the emotional and physical isolation of the characters in the film.

My favourite part in the film is when Rachel, returning home after crossdressing Rupert, finally gets a glimpse of the mysterious singer that was heard throughout the film. Ruth briefly mentioned this to Richard, saying that no one had ever seen her. But Rachel, after exploring gender roles and sexuality, peers through a crack and sees a beautiful man standing alone singing with the voice of an angel, showing that beauty is not confined to male or female but that it transcends gender. This singer is Daniel Taylor, one of my two favourite countertenors. His appearance is very brief but his voice and his music helps tie the film together, linking Richard and Rachel in their quest for beauty. Taylor is Canada's most famous countertenor and one of the best in the world. I actually rented this film just to see him in it and I wasn't disappointed.

For me the music to this film is exquisite. Much of it is baroque, polyphonic, medieval, and one John Dowland Renaissance song with four Spanish songs thrown in. Daniel Taylor performs "Amarilli mia bella" and "Come to my window." Below you will find the listing of songs used in the film. There are some scenes involving nudity and sexual themes (voyeurism, crossdressing) and some strong language. But overall this film made me think more than any other film I've seen in the last ten years. And that's a good thing.

Taking a page (or two) from the Sixth Sense, this movie is about a girl who think she sees ghosts, and the unbelieving psychologist that tries to help her. Things get tense when the doctor starts to see ghosts as well.
Part romance, part ghost story, this movie is mostly about how we cope with our pasts. Although it is well acted by Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam, and very well shot and directed the movie starts to ramble in the last half hour or so and although there are hints and clues all over the place, by the end you'll be left wondering how the details all fit together.
Although this is by no means a bad movie, I'd recommend picking up The Sixth Sense or the Pang Brothers The Eye, recently released on DVD and VHS in the US. If those aren't available, give this a shot, there are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

"Inner Senses" is another great horror movie to come out of Asia in recent years. However, it suffers from a certain lack of originality. Its basic premise imitates that of "The Sixth Sense" i.e. psychiatrist tries to help troubled person who sees dead people. The horror scenes in the last minutes of "Inner Senses" also borrow heavily from Japan's "Ring". Such weaknesses aside, "Inner Senses" is certainly an intelligent horror movie, much more so than my other Asian favourite to come out in 2002, "The Eye". While "The Eye" goes all out to scare audiences, "Inner Senses" prefers to make audiences think beyond what they are witnessing on the screen. In what is probably his last great performance, Leslie Cheung is Jim, a psychiatrist who works in a mental hospital. Jim is an atheist who places his faith in science and has no time for superstitious nonsense, including religion. As he states in his lecture at the beginning of the movie, "ghosts" are all in the mind, the result of the mind putting together various randomly accumulated information about a society's superstitions. He agrees to take on a client as a favour for a colleague. Karena Lam is Yan, a troubled girl who claims to see dead people. She lives in terror of the strange visitors who visits her apartment, especially her kindly (but somewhat mentally unbalanced) landlord's long dead wife and child. She plasters all her glass windows and mirrors in her apartment with newspapers to avoid seeing "things". Jim works hard to free Yan of her fears and successfully convinces her that none of her visions are real. They are the result of her loneliness, troubled childhood, failed relationships, overactive imagination and neighbours' pranks. But once Yan is freed of her visions, Jim starts to see a dead teenage girl himself ... she hums a strangely familiar tune, giggles at some secret joke, and follows him around. He has flashbacks about his teenage years and sleepwalks looking for something from the past ... something so terrible that he has buried the memories in unreachable places in his mind. Yan has to help him figure out what it is before his visions destroy him. "Inner Senses" will have audiences thinking long after the end of the movie. Although "ghosts" do make multiple spine-tingling appearances in "Inner Senses", we are not told unequivocally that they are, in fact, ghosts. The protagonists' experiences can rightly be attributed to their fractured mental conditions. Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam both give outstanding performances as flawed people coping with inexplicable and terrifying events. The last minutes of "Inner Senses" eerily foreshadow Leslie Cheung's suicide in 2003. The Chinese movie world has lost a great entertainer, but his memory will remain with us.

Taking a page (or two) from the Sixth Sense, this movie is about a girl who think she sees ghosts, and the unbelieving psychologist that tries to help her. Things get tense when the doctor starts to see ghosts as well.
Part romance, part ghost story, this movie is mostly about how we cope with our pasts. Although it is well acted by Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam, and very well shot and directed the movie starts to ramble in the last half hour or so and although there are hints and clues all over the place, by the end you'll be left wondering how the details all fit together.
Although this is by no means a bad movie, I'd recommend picking up The Sixth Sense or the Pang Brothers The Eye, recently released on DVD and VHS in the US. If those aren't available, give this a shot, there are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

"Inner Senses" is another great horror movie to come out of Asia in recent years. However, it suffers from a certain lack of originality. Its basic premise imitates that of "The Sixth Sense" i.e. psychiatrist tries to help troubled person who sees dead people. The horror scenes in the last minutes of "Inner Senses" also borrow heavily from Japan's "Ring". Such weaknesses aside, "Inner Senses" is certainly an intelligent horror movie, much more so than my other Asian favourite to come out in 2002, "The Eye". While "The Eye" goes all out to scare audiences, "Inner Senses" prefers to make audiences think beyond what they are witnessing on the screen. In what is probably his last great performance, Leslie Cheung is Jim, a psychiatrist who works in a mental hospital. Jim is an atheist who places his faith in science and has no time for superstitious nonsense, including religion. As he states in his lecture at the beginning of the movie, "ghosts" are all in the mind, the result of the mind putting together various randomly accumulated information about a society's superstitions. He agrees to take on a client as a favour for a colleague. Karena Lam is Yan, a troubled girl who claims to see dead people. She lives in terror of the strange visitors who visits her apartment, especially her kindly (but somewhat mentally unbalanced) landlord's long dead wife and child. She plasters all her glass windows and mirrors in her apartment with newspapers to avoid seeing "things". Jim works hard to free Yan of her fears and successfully convinces her that none of her visions are real. They are the result of her loneliness, troubled childhood, failed relationships, overactive imagination and neighbours' pranks. But once Yan is freed of her visions, Jim starts to see a dead teenage girl himself ... she hums a strangely familiar tune, giggles at some secret joke, and follows him around. He has flashbacks about his teenage years and sleepwalks looking for something from the past ... something so terrible that he has buried the memories in unreachable places in his mind. Yan has to help him figure out what it is before his visions destroy him. "Inner Senses" will have audiences thinking long after the end of the movie. Although "ghosts" do make multiple spine-tingling appearances in "Inner Senses", we are not told unequivocally that they are, in fact, ghosts. The protagonists' experiences can rightly be attributed to their fractured mental conditions. Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam both give outstanding performances as flawed people coping with inexplicable and terrifying events. The last minutes of "Inner Senses" eerily foreshadow Leslie Cheung's suicide in 2003. The Chinese movie world has lost a great entertainer, but his memory will remain with us.

The complaints about the Fox Lorber edition of this movie are unfortunately justified. 7-8 out of the original 104 minutes have been cut, reducing the movie to about 96-97 minutes. The movie is reproduced poorly in pan-scan. The scene access is haphazard and often into the middle of a scene and not the beginning (in short useless). The quality of the video transfer is not great, although I would have accepted that if it were not for the butchered editing and cuts.

7 minutes does not seem that serious until you realize the film is robbed of parts or entire scenes which made it shocking and unique (as well as almost banned) at the time. The jacket does not mention the cuts, and lists the original length of 104 minutes. I do not have any other Fox Lorber editions in my library, and this will not make me want to purchase others.

The movie is still shocking and fascinating in its portrayal of the main characters as well as the background against which it is set, but the cuts shorten and obscure the key scenes. Hard to say if I would consider the movie pornographic, or even erotic, but it certainly does not lose its impact even though 25 years have passed since I originally saw it when it made its original art-house appearance in the US.

I give it three stars only because of the original material, and not this DVD edition. This is a unique piece of moviemaking considering the original 1976-77 release date, and to my knowledge there is currently no better alternative in the US. I would suggest to anyone who decides to purchase this DVD to look up and read one of the detailed reviews and synopsis of the movie online, to get a better idea of the missing material.

If I could be frank, I don't understand why this film is not considered soft-core porn. You actually see his organ in her mouth and they really do have sex and it's not acting, like in most films. I must say that this movie grossed me out, turned me on and made me laugh all at the same time. It is not very long and I didn't really catch that it was a brothel that Sada worked at, so I couldn't figure out why everyone was so okay with them having sex all the time and the amount of voyeurism.

I give this film three stars because even though it is hard to watch and does get too monotonous with the sex (that's pretty much all the film is, them having sex) I must commend it for it's exploration of the idea of how sexuality and pleasure can go to the point of death. It's like at the peak moment of sex, nothing else matters except the ultimate pleasure, even death. That's an interesting idea and a more facinating thing is that the store is true, set in 1930's Japan. There are all sorts of gruesome and i-can't-believe-they-filmed-that scenes, such as one involving an egg. The ending made me squirm with repulsion and disgust, and the shocking thing is that they actually show her actions on camera at the end as well. Nothing is censored in this film, which I highly commend, since I am against censorship. I suppose the director wanted to make this film have a raw feel to it and that's why I don't think it's done very tastefully. It is also really suprising that this film was released in mainstream cinemas in America. I don't know what Japan is like as far as explicit "non-porn" films (this film is clearly porn though), but we're so censor-crazy here, so it's suprising and liberating to find out that its release happened.

I like Asian cinema. I really haven't seen all that many of these types of films, but the few I viewed over the past two or three years were excellent in terms of plot, special effects, and cinematography. The best thing about films from Japan and Hong Kong, and let's face it, these are the ones we're all talking about, is their non-western views about movie violence and adult situations. These guys are simply more willing to push envelopes we wouldn't think of touching. Well, "In the Realm of the Senses" not only pushes envelopes, it shreds them into tiny pieces. This taboo busting film claims a real event in 1930's Japan as the basis for a love story the likes of which you have rarely seen. This is the type of celluloid nightmare that stays with you long after the closing credits fade into darkness. "In the Realm of the Senses" mixes pornography, psychotic obsession, and grisly special effects to produce a volatile cocktail that will ambush those individuals not used to extreme cinema.

Set in a Japan gearing up for war, "In the Realm of the Senses" introduces the viewer to a brothel where the young Abe Sada works. One of the regular customers is Kichizo, an older married man who enjoys the company of the geishas. It isn't too long before Sada and Kichizo meet, and the two rapidly move into deeper and deeper realms of obsession and sexual adventure. The game, although it sure doesn't seem like a playful adventure, transmogrifies into open menace on the part of Sada, who threatens to maim or kill Kichizo if he pays the slightest attention to his wife. Even the other women in the brothel become fearful and chary about the strange events unfolding between the two lovers. Sada and Kichizo stay in a single room for days, without bathing or cleaning the floors. The obsession the two possess for each other often causes day-to-day worries to fade into the background. Things sink to such a bizarre level that the conclusion really shouldn't come as a surprise, although it does because of its emotional shot to the stomach. This is an incredible experience that many will not or cannot fathom, let alone comprehend. I'm not sure I understand several of the film's elements, probably due in large part to the atrocious DVD version constructed by Fox Lorber.

I recognize this is a foreign film and therefore possibly problematic for English speaking technicians, but this DVD is poorly made. The English subtitles rarely match up with the person speaking; the transfer doesn't look as good as it should, and even when I used the zoom function I knew I wasn't seeing the film the way the director intended. You get glimpses of how good the film must look when properly formatted and fully restored, such as brilliant flashes of color from Sada's kimonos and the lighting used by director Nagisa Oshima STILL looks great despite the bad transfer. A movie this powerful deserves much better than this stilted treatment. I've heard bad things about Fox Lorber concerning other DVD releases, and I tend to believe those statements now after seeing how they butchered this film.

I am sure there are numerous subtexts drifting through "In the Realm of the Senses," but I am not sure what they all are. I couldn't help but notice how the rigid Japanese social system repeatedly reared its head. The women all refer to Kichizo as "master" and readily submit to his attentions even when they do not wish to do so. That's what makes the conclusion so surprising; that a woman in Japanese society did what she did must have been absolutely mind blowing to the patriarchal social hierarchy. Another aspect of the film certainly dealt with the war and Japan's machismo based discipline, but I cannot say exactly how it fits into the picture. After all, I only noticed one scene where I saw any soldiers. Is the obsession between Sada and Kichizo paralleled with the deadly obsession Japan had for its war plans? I'm probably reaching badly with this, but Japan's disastrous bid for world domination must play a role in this somewhere.

I won't watch this again until a company releases a decent DVD edition. I probably wouldn't watch it again soon anyway because the movie is so darn intense it takes awhile to absorb what you're seeing. It blows my mind that this got a theatrical release in the States back in the 1970s. I'll bet a lot of people had no idea what they got themselves into when they decided to spend a few hours with Nagisa Oshima's psychological tour de force. When they rated it NC-17 for the DVD release, they knew what they were talking about!

The complaints about the Fox Lorber edition of this movie are unfortunately justified. 7-8 out of the original 104 minutes have been cut, reducing the movie to about 96-97 minutes. The movie is reproduced poorly in pan-scan. The scene access is haphazard and often into the middle of a scene and not the beginning (in short useless). The quality of the video transfer is not great, although I would have accepted that if it were not for the butchered editing and cuts.

7 minutes does not seem that serious until you realize the film is robbed of parts or entire scenes which made it shocking and unique (as well as almost banned) at the time. The jacket does not mention the cuts, and lists the original length of 104 minutes. I do not have any other Fox Lorber editions in my library, and this will not make me want to purchase others.

The movie is still shocking and fascinating in its portrayal of the main characters as well as the background against which it is set, but the cuts shorten and obscure the key scenes. Hard to say if I would consider the movie pornographic, or even erotic, but it certainly does not lose its impact even though 25 years have passed since I originally saw it when it made its original art-house appearance in the US.

I give it three stars only because of the original material, and not this DVD edition. This is a unique piece of moviemaking considering the original 1976-77 release date, and to my knowledge there is currently no better alternative in the US. I would suggest to anyone who decides to purchase this DVD to look up and read one of the detailed reviews and synopsis of the movie online, to get a better idea of the missing material.

If I could be frank, I don't understand why this film is not considered soft-core porn. You actually see his organ in her mouth and they really do have sex and it's not acting, like in most films. I must say that this movie grossed me out, turned me on and made me laugh all at the same time. It is not very long and I didn't really catch that it was a brothel that Sada worked at, so I couldn't figure out why everyone was so okay with them having sex all the time and the amount of voyeurism.

I give this film three stars because even though it is hard to watch and does get too monotonous with the sex (that's pretty much all the film is, them having sex) I must commend it for it's exploration of the idea of how sexuality and pleasure can go to the point of death. It's like at the peak moment of sex, nothing else matters except the ultimate pleasure, even death. That's an interesting idea and a more facinating thing is that the store is true, set in 1930's Japan. There are all sorts of gruesome and i-can't-believe-they-filmed-that scenes, such as one involving an egg. The ending made me squirm with repulsion and disgust, and the shocking thing is that they actually show her actions on camera at the end as well. Nothing is censored in this film, which I highly commend, since I am against censorship. I suppose the director wanted to make this film have a raw feel to it and that's why I don't think it's done very tastefully. It is also really suprising that this film was released in mainstream cinemas in America. I don't know what Japan is like as far as explicit "non-porn" films (this film is clearly porn though), but we're so censor-crazy here, so it's suprising and liberating to find out that its release happened.

I like Asian cinema. I really haven't seen all that many of these types of films, but the few I viewed over the past two or three years were excellent in terms of plot, special effects, and cinematography. The best thing about films from Japan and Hong Kong, and let's face it, these are the ones we're all talking about, is their non-western views about movie violence and adult situations. These guys are simply more willing to push envelopes we wouldn't think of touching. Well, "In the Realm of the Senses" not only pushes envelopes, it shreds them into tiny pieces. This taboo busting film claims a real event in 1930's Japan as the basis for a love story the likes of which you have rarely seen. This is the type of celluloid nightmare that stays with you long after the closing credits fade into darkness. "In the Realm of the Senses" mixes pornography, psychotic obsession, and grisly special effects to produce a volatile cocktail that will ambush those individuals not used to extreme cinema.

Set in a Japan gearing up for war, "In the Realm of the Senses" introduces the viewer to a brothel where the young Abe Sada works. One of the regular customers is Kichizo, an older married man who enjoys the company of the geishas. It isn't too long before Sada and Kichizo meet, and the two rapidly move into deeper and deeper realms of obsession and sexual adventure. The game, although it sure doesn't seem like a playful adventure, transmogrifies into open menace on the part of Sada, who threatens to maim or kill Kichizo if he pays the slightest attention to his wife. Even the other women in the brothel become fearful and chary about the strange events unfolding between the two lovers. Sada and Kichizo stay in a single room for days, without bathing or cleaning the floors. The obsession the two possess for each other often causes day-to-day worries to fade into the background. Things sink to such a bizarre level that the conclusion really shouldn't come as a surprise, although it does because of its emotional shot to the stomach. This is an incredible experience that many will not or cannot fathom, let alone comprehend. I'm not sure I understand several of the film's elements, probably due in large part to the atrocious DVD version constructed by Fox Lorber.

I recognize this is a foreign film and therefore possibly problematic for English speaking technicians, but this DVD is poorly made. The English subtitles rarely match up with the person speaking; the transfer doesn't look as good as it should, and even when I used the zoom function I knew I wasn't seeing the film the way the director intended. You get glimpses of how good the film must look when properly formatted and fully restored, such as brilliant flashes of color from Sada's kimonos and the lighting used by director Nagisa Oshima STILL looks great despite the bad transfer. A movie this powerful deserves much better than this stilted treatment. I've heard bad things about Fox Lorber concerning other DVD releases, and I tend to believe those statements now after seeing how they butchered this film.

I am sure there are numerous subtexts drifting through "In the Realm of the Senses," but I am not sure what they all are. I couldn't help but notice how the rigid Japanese social system repeatedly reared its head. The women all refer to Kichizo as "master" and readily submit to his attentions even when they do not wish to do so. That's what makes the conclusion so surprising; that a woman in Japanese society did what she did must have been absolutely mind blowing to the patriarchal social hierarchy. Another aspect of the film certainly dealt with the war and Japan's machismo based discipline, but I cannot say exactly how it fits into the picture. After all, I only noticed one scene where I saw any soldiers. Is the obsession between Sada and Kichizo paralleled with the deadly obsession Japan had for its war plans? I'm probably reaching badly with this, but Japan's disastrous bid for world domination must play a role in this somewhere.

I won't watch this again until a company releases a decent DVD edition. I probably wouldn't watch it again soon anyway because the movie is so darn intense it takes awhile to absorb what you're seeing. It blows my mind that this got a theatrical release in the States back in the 1970s. I'll bet a lot of people had no idea what they got themselves into when they decided to spend a few hours with Nagisa Oshima's psychological tour de force. When they rated it NC-17 for the DVD release, they knew what they were talking about!