The borders between art and life collapse in Yasuzô Masumura's unhinged 1969 erotic grotesque. It begins on a kinky note with black and white photographs of a nude model entwined in chains. Masumura then shifts to the gallery walls on which the photos hang. In the center of the space, a blind man caresses a life-size sculpture of model Aki Shima (Mako Midori).
While watching from outside the space, Aki notes in voiceover that it feels as if he were touching her body. She shivers and makes her exit. That night when she calls for a masseur, the man arrives to knead her cares away. The minute she recognizes him, she recoils, and he knocks her out with chloroform.
He and an older woman (Akira Kurosawa's favorite Noriko Sengoku) then spirit her away to an isolated warehouse. When she awakens, she finds herself locked in a studio with huge, sculpted body parts covering the walls—eyes, noses, mouths, breasts, and limbs. Two oversized reclining figures dominate the floor. Artist-abductor Môjû (Eiji Funakoshi) appears to reassure her that he has no desire to cause her any harm, he just wants to sculpt her perfect body. At first, she resists, and he chases her around the naked female figure like an ero-geru outtake from Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex.
Finally, she relents, but she's actually plotting her escape. After the older woman--his mother--foils her attempt, she realizes he's nothing but an overgrown infant, a man-child who has never had a drink or known a woman's touch. She encourages him to drink and seduces him in order to make her jealous. That's when things get physical, but this isn't a Room-like film in which a captive keeps trying to find a way out. Instead, Môjû takes Aki by force. After that, she bends to his will, but it goes far beyond that—so far that the misogynistic premise morphs into a warped form of feminism.
Masumura has explored this territory before. In Irezumi, for instance, men turn a woman into a monster who proceeds to destroy them, but the director's adaptation of a 1931 serialized novel by Horrors of Malformed Men author Edogawa Ranpo proves a more lurid affair. Even if Môjû’s smothering mother has contributed to his psychosis, Masumura also suggests his disability as a contributing factor. Since Môjû can't see Aki, he's more interested in the way she feels than the way she looks, but by establishing a physical connection with her, she becomes so sexually insatiable—so "beastly" as it were—that the relationship swerves into sadomasochism. When that isn't enough, Aki craves something even more transgressive.
None of this is especially subtle, especially the actors’ feverish performances, though Fires on the Plain cinematographer Setsuo Kobayashi uses negative space masterfully and Onibaba composer Hikaru Hayashi's restrained score grounds the over-the-top action. Extras include a video essay from Seth Jacobowitz, commentary from Earl Jackson, and an expectedly excellent introduction from Tony Rayns. Recommended for erotica and classic film collections.