The Bedroom (1992)

 

a.k.a. Unfaithful Wife: Shameful Torture

Director: Hisayasu Satô

Screenplay: Shirô Yumeno

Cast: Kiyomi Itô as Kyoko; Momori Asano as Ai; Kyôko Nakamura as Kinue

An Abstract Candidate

 

Lasting only an hour, this film within the pinku erotic genre is clearly less interested in erotica in a titillating way, but as a theme, about obsession. A woman is our central figure, Kyoko (Kiyomi Itô), whose sister has died under tragic circumstances. Leaving a mystery she wishes to solve about the death, Kyoko before the film starts has already joined a club where, as a willing participant, women are hired to take sleeping pills and let themselves be sleeping beauties for male clients sexually in sessions.

As erotica, from the get-go, this is tonally more ethereal, a mood piece about sexual desire, where for certain scenes the harsh reds, pinks and blues feel apt for the tone as do the scenes of septic white living spaces. There is going to be content here that will make people uncomfortable in content, about playing to faked non-consensual scenarios, but it is something distinct as a tale of a woman who, investigating this mystery, is also trying to figure out her own self. Kyoko also loves a husband who may even be a fake one, desires him, only to feel no love back, and the loss of her sister intermingling within this context adds to the psychological schisms which grow to plague her as the film progresses in narrative. From here, it goes into this weird club of men with curious fetishes and willing dolls, even with Kyoko not taking the sleeping pills and becoming a fully willing participant, even if one female member died of an overdose on the job of these pills, a factor which adds a suspicion of those involved.

These do include kinks which are less extreme but follows a theme of ennui felt in society, where the husband is taking the same type of sleeping pills himself due to stress of his ICT job. It is a malaise leaving men with obsessions of photographing these women to one man who likes oiling people up, which in context is sensual, belying how this is tackling taboos with a neutral stance. These is however the most notorious scene here too, the one which may raise concern, of a client fixated with biting playing by Issei Sagawa. Sagawa is a choice of a scene's casting which is shocking, as he was a notorious figure convicted in France in 198 for an incredibly disturbing case, the murder of Renée Hartevelt in Paris which also involved cannibalism among its many disturbing aspects. He was deemed mentally unfit for trial, but would be eventually able to return back to his own country in the later part of the eighties, which was incredibly controversial, with a growing morbid celebrity he was developing back home and in France itself. It is the one moment which could be seen as morally problematic in casting him, though considering he even became a food critic for the Japanese magazine Spa, you can entirely blame certain pop culture being ghouls too. It is balanced as well as the fact that as a figure whose notoriety ebbed away, the seeming ability Sagawa had to continue as a free man became a curse for him due to how he developed this celebrity fed reputation, until dying in on the 24th November 2022.  Director Hisayasu Satô, whose career in pinku ranged between transgression (Lolita Vibrator Torture (1987)) to explicit homoerotic themes and subject matter (Bondage Ecstasy (1989)) is someone who clearly used pinku cinema to tackle taboos and thinking of his films beyond titillation, so the casting whilst eyebrow raising is clearly in mind to someone who was being provocative in this casting choice even if one with hindsight which may have been a step too far.

The Bedroom is fascinating even beyond this as an esoteric mood piece, apt from its aforementioned director Hisayasu Satô. Alongside Kazuhiro Sano, Toshiki Satō and Takahisa Zeze, he is one of "Four Heavenly Kings of Pink", he was among the group acclaimed in pinku cinema but as explicitly experimental figures. The eroticism is explicit but centred on images like Kiyomi Itô on a bed wrapped in cling-film, it is a disarming tale of disconnected figures attempting to connect through their bodies and sex. It is almost like J.G. Ballard in its septic metropolitan world and obsessions such as the voyeurism of film cameras, Kyoko keeping one on in the fridge to talk directly to, or how the owner of the sleeping doll club is an unseen figure hidden behind an industrial white face mask, who can see all through cameras. The only thing which seems abrupt is the very unexpected twist ending, which is one that may be divisive for those who appreciate the film already for how abrupt it is, even if built upon in the sense of disconnect in the reality of the film. Nonetheless, it is a compelling example to how erotic cinema in Japan became a way to produce some very unconventional productions over the decades, in any tone and genre, winning favour for me the more I see.

Abstract Spectrum: Atmospheric

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low