This is a bilingual edition (French and Japanese, printed back to back) of Nagisa Oshima's scenario for the film "Gohatto," which was released both in Japan and abroad earlier this year. The title refers to the penal codes that codified the actions of the Shinsengumi, that ad hoc army devoted to supporting the Tokugawa shogunate during the last days of the Edo era.
The codes held this military society together. They were strict -- breaking them meant execution -- and they were inhuman -- any means justified the expected end, and individuals judged to be a peril to the majority were to be liquidated. At the same time, the organization was vulnerable -- physical passion could destroy it.
This is a major theme in the films of Oshima: the power of private passion in confrontation with the constructs of mass society. "In the Realm of the Senses" shows the lovers' ardor triumphing over the ordered ranks among which we live. Their couplings are a criticism of our structured social lives, and in the end love masters even death.
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