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ONCE UPON A TIME… IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES


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ONCE UPON A TIME... IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES

Director David Thompson
Writers David Thompson, Serge July and Marie Genin
Image Thomas Bataille, Yutaka Yamazaki
Sound Thierry Blandin, Teji Kuroki
Editing Barbara Bascou
Length 52 minutes
Format 16/9
Versions French and English
Copyrights ARTE France – FOLAMOUR – TCM – 2010
broadcasters ARTE, TCM, Ceska Televize

Intervenants:

  • Hayao SHIBATA, Shibata Organization, production coordination
  • Katsue TOMIYAMA, president of Image Forum, stage manager, actress in the film
  • Koji WAKAMATSU, filmmaker, production manager on the film
  • Yoichi SAI, filmmaker and first assistant on the film
  • Akiko KOYAMA, actress and wife of N. Oshima
  • Tatsuya FUJI, actor
  • Catherine MILLET, actress and wife of N. Oshima
  • Catherine BREILLAT, filmmaker
  • Hubert NIOGRET, film critic

Portrait of a film: A story set in the 1930s, a film about crazy love, explicit about sex. A film both pornographic according to its author, and called art & essay in many countries. It was shot in Japan, but produced and edited in France to avoid Japanese censorship. A unique film in the history of cinema.

Portrait of an era: The film, which was made in 1975, deals with sexual liberation, feminist demands and the affirmation of pleasure. The popularity of pornographic cinema allows Nagisa Oshima to make a film that denounces the repression of all sensuality that has been the rule since the triumph of Japanese militarism in the 1930s. The film draws its inspiration from a real-life story: in 1936, while having sexual intercourse, Abe Sada killed an innkeeper who was her lover. Her trial made her an icon of love in Japan.

Portrait of a filmmaker: Nagisa Oshima is one of the greatest filmmakers in his country, and the emblematic figure of the Japanese new wave. Japanese cinema suffered a terrible crisis during the 1970s. Filmmakers had to find a foreign co-production to produce their films. In 1972, Nagisa Oshima stopped making films. He went on to make documentary films and host a television show dedicated to women, before directing In the realm of the Senses with the help of Anatole Dauman. This film was banned in Japan and earned the filmmaker a three-year trial. Nagisa Oshima died in 2013.