A Woman Called Sada Abe

This is the earlier version of the same true story used for the highly-acclaimed and controversial IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES. This version is bloodier but less sexually explicit. Whereas the death of Ishida was the climax of Oshima's film, here it happens halfway through and then the focus is completely on the grief and longing of Sada Abe for her dead lover. High caliber acting and photography give this shocking story a sheen of artistic quality lacking in most erotic filmmaking.

Based upon a true story (which is more common through Nagisa Oshimas "In the Realm of Senses"), this well filmed, well acted Japanese movie is as much a contribution to the infamous "pink film" genre, as it is a fascinating tale of the wild and weird ways that sexual obsession leads to. Kaio, as Abe Sada called herself, and her boss Kishi are drawn into an amorous affair and totally forget about the outside world. They stay in a hotel room and day-in, day-out they spent their time with erotic games, exploring all aspects of physical love and gradually going further and further, until... It's not really sado-masochism of the western type, it looks more like erotic rituals, yet for the unprepared viewer some scenes may be quite harsh. This one's neither moralistic nor stuff to turn on voyeurs. The obsession is physically visible, but no doubt is left that the real obsession takes place in the minds of the protagonists. A forgotten gem, interesting, provocative and highly recommendable.

Made just before, Empire of the Senses, based upon the same 1936 incident and the year before the director would make, Watcher in the Attic. The later film also concerns obsession getting close to madness but that one is a little easier to watch than this. Well enough made, with some beautiful shots and close-ups and good performances, this is pretty gruelling stuff. I found, even the early scenes where there is a lot of laughing and licking of each others fingers slightly uncomfortable and that's before we get onto flavouring their food with each others juices and ultimately, games involving the tying of a pink cloth around the neck. Nicely non linear, with jumps forward and the reveres with newspaper clippings and some historical detail, but it is still claustrophobic, being mainly set in one room, and always unsettling.

I remember watching half of this and turning it off for whatever reason. It can be kind of stale due to the fact that a lot of this is soft core pornography -- it would be more appropriate to talk about how this actually qualifies as art as opposed to something that would be shown on Cinemax at 2 AM.

The film is very stereotypically Japanese in the sense that it involves a lot of dramatic, well planned shots that are minimalistic, often focusing on the human face or on abstract objects of importance. It was filmed tenderly and with an amount of love, but I feel the direction of cinematography and the direction of the film itself were a little contrived and a little too fast.

Unfortunately, the majority of the film takes place in one set and that slowly wore on my nerves. Having little change of scenery the film becomes quite stuffy at parts.

The film goes on to try to portray the depths of human emotion and sadness, while at the same time maintaining the insanity of its' subject... I found her hard to relate to and the writer or director should have taken a fundamentally different angle being that it just was not working with the mix they were using. It was hard to arouse any sympathy being that the scenes trying redeem her moral character were hardly long enough.

I found myself wanting to know more about Sada Abe and less about the incidences the film surrounded. In that sense, the film really isn't about a woman called Sada Abe -- it should be called 'a crazy thing Sada Abe once did.' However, the film is not all bad... It is certainly shocking in some scenes, and it is certainly worthy of a view if you have an interest in Japanese film. However, it is not worthy of more.