In the Realm of the Senses/愛のコリーダ (Ai no Korīda) (1976) - Ôshima's psycho-sexual shocker

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A tense and intimate moment between a man and a woman in old-fashioned Japanese garbs make up most of this exceedingly text-littered poster for Nagisa Ôshima's In the Realm of the Senses

In Japan in the 1930s, the young woman Sada is increasingly obsessed with her lover Kichizo, despite his married status, and her urge to possess him only increases.

 

In the Realm of the Senses is written and directed by Nagisa Ôshima (Ai to kibô no machi (1959)). The original Japanese title translates to, 'bullfight of love'. It is a fictionalized account of the real-life sensational murder of her lover by Sada Abe in 1936.

Ôshima's film is a blindingly strange and uncompromising one with sexual malaise, a psycho-sexual relationship in which the sexuality becomes all-encompassing and fatal. Shockingly explicit, - SPOILER including a scene in which Sada pinches a naked boy's penis, - In the Realm of the Senses is hard to watch, heavy as well, and inauspicious as a date movie. It is nevertheless a remarkable film.

 

 

Watch a scene from the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: In excess of 7.65 mil. $ (France and West Germany alone)

= Uncertain but likely at least a huge hit

[In the Realm of the Senses premiered 15 May (Cannes Film Festival, out of competition) and runs 108 minutes (original cut)/102 minutes (producers' cut). The film's explicit sexual content meant that it would not pass Japan's censorship: Ôshima planned to get around this by making it as a French production in Japan, and shipping the film to France for post production. Shooting took place in Kyoto, Japan. Despite optically censoring, reframing and blurring his film to appease the censors, Ôshima was nevertheless sued with obscenity along with a man responsible for a book release based on the film. Both were found not guilty in 1979 and again in 1982. The film was met with outrage, longer or shorter bans and extraordinary interest in most countries it was released in. In France and Germany alone it sold 2.4 mil. tickets, grossing 7.65 mil. $. It also grossed 1.4 mil. SEK in Sweden. The film's cost and world gross is regrettably unknown, but it was likely a huge hit. Ôshima returned with 3 TV credits prior to his theatrical return Empire of the Senses/Ai no bôrei (1978). Eiko Matsuda (Jack no irezumi (1970)) returned in Ôoku ukiyo-buro (1977); Tatsuya Fuji (Radiance/Hikari (2017)) in Empire of Passion. In the Realm of the Senses is fresh at 84 % with a 7.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of In the Realm of the Senses? 

The Pledge (2001) - Maddening, realistic, unpleasant child-killer story

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Jack Nicholson as the restless cop on the poster for Sean Penn's The Pledge

The Pledge is Sean Penn's (Into the Wild (2007)) third foray into directing following The Indian Runner (1991) and The Crossing Guard (1995), which is also with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt (2002)). Of the two, I definitely prefer The Crossing Guard, but it may be a matter of taste more than quality difference.
The Pledge is based on Swiss author/playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella Das Versprechen:Requiem for den Kriminalroman/The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel (1958), which has been adapted before in Germany and the UK.
It is a story of a retiring cop in a country county, who on the eve of his retirement party helps out at a crime scene, where a little girl has been found ravaged and murdered. He pledges to the girl's grieving mother (Patricia Clarkson (The East (2013)), who is strong in the part) that he will find the killer, and then watches at the station, as the accused, mentally disadvantaged Indian (Benicio Del Toro) is more or less coaxed into an ambiguous confession by a colleague with a hard-on for closing the case (Aaron Eckhart), before the Indian SPOILER steals a gun and blows his brains out. Jerry (Nicholson) is retired, but he can't let the case rest: What if the killer wasn't this Indian? What if the monster is still out there?
The story is told so that we have no problem understanding why this will not let Jerry's mind rest. An important decision in that regard is that we see crime scene photos of a similar crime a little while into the film, which is truly horrifying and aligns us with Jerry completely.
But then kicks in the Requiem for the Detective Novel-part in The Pledge, because Jerry's efforts are essentially SPOILER fruitless: His hunger for justice and peace of mind turns into an obsession and eventually crumbles his mind completely, as we see in the film's last shots of Nicholson spazzing out. Even more maddening is the fact that we see that he was close to the solution and salvation, - but just missed it. It bears reminiscence to the ending of Penn's later Northern tale, Into the Wild, in which the lead Christopher dies of sickness and hunger isolated in an abandoned bus in Alaska much closer to civilization than he thinks he is.

The details:

The Pledge is well-played, although I think there was a single mis-tune to Nicholson's performance, when he has to make us and some colleagues understand why this case is so obsessively important, and I could see the actor taking the leap to up the stakes for his character, but a little too late. - He's good in the film, granted, but it's not among his greatest performances. Also the character seems somewhat lean: When asked about why he isn't married at one point, he replies that he's a "two-time loser". - Which could mean at least two and really several things, but we never learn. - Never learn much about Jerry besides his obsession. In that sense, The Pledge remains strictly a detective movie and stays clear of drama-elements about the character's past, but since it is a detective story about not finding a solution, (although we as audiences do see the solution), it is an almost maddeningly frustrating time.
- Also because of the subject matter, child abduction, -rape and -murder, which made me uncomfortable before the film was also about the killer being an elusive son of a *****, AND Jack Nicholson losing his mind. Thiscombined weight of this whole stack of unpleasant things is too much for me to still basically enjoy the film, which I must say that I didn''t. Also because it is fiercely realistic and very well-made, photography-wise (Chris Menges (The Reader (2008)) and acting-wise: Vanessa Redgrave also gives a great performance in a single scene as the murdered girl's grandmother. And the ensemble cast is very impressive with additional stars Sam Shepard, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke (who is also moving as a father of a missing daughter) and Harry Dean Stanton.
Penn is in pre-production with another film right now which he will direct called The Last Face.

Related reviews:

Sean Penn as actor:  Gangster Squad (2013) or, Good Men vs. Bad Men! 
The Tree of Life (2011) or, Mother, Father, Sharks, Dinosaurs, My Brothers, Sunflowers, the Desert, the Wind and Me 
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life 

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 35 mil. $
Box office: 29.4 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of The Pledge?

Bride of the Gorilla (1951) or, Jungle Obsessions!

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Sensationalist poster for a rather dull film, Curt Siodmak's Bride of the Gorilla

QUICK REVIEW:

One night deep in the jungle, an unpopular man of wealth dies under mysterious circumstances. His wife remarries quickly; - unfortunately with a man, who soon will only stay in the jungle, persuaded by black magic and plant-toxins that he is a gorilla!
Despite this fascinating obsession, Bride is a luckless acquaintance. Cover images are inter-cut with unconvincing studio jungle-trash and squarely dumb lines such as the police commissioner's (played by Lon Chaney, Jr.): "I know my jungle!"
Raymond Burr (Perry Mason (1957-66)), however, does a nice job in the gorilla lead.
The film is one of the more suggestive creature features, as you never really see anything much in that department, which will disappoint many audiences, and the film has also mostly been revived for ridicule since its creation.
A shame, since it has some nice talent involved, besides Chaney, Jr. and Burr, the film is directed by German Curt Siodmak, who wasn't much of a director, but who wrote great scripts for many films, most notably The Wolf Man (1941).

Raymond Burr and Barbara Peyton in Curt Siodmak's Bride of the Gorilla

Watch this trailer, with director Joe Dante (Gremlins (1984)) talking interesting, lurid trivia about Bride

Budget: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown

What do you think of Bride of the Gorilla?