Slave Widow

From an aesthetic standpoint, it is difficult to appreciate the softcore pornography of today. Most of it is TV quality, features substandard acting by humans that have been artificially enhanced, and tells a story that appears to have been thought up five minutes prior to shooting.

For softcore with some filmic value, we can turn to the Japanese "sexploitation" of forty years ago with filmmaker Momoru Watanabe's "Slave Widow." I have put sexploitation in quotations because although that is how it is billed by the studio Cinema Epoch, it is a term I suspect was used to describe the movement after the fact. (I've just learned that these types of movies were known as "pink films" during their heyday in Japan).
Fact is, titillation and cinema have been happy bedfellows since the medium was born. Genres are mostly a handy classification for later discussion and marketing. "Slave Widow" can be described as softcore, or grindhouse, or sexploitation, but like the best of the films in those genres, it can be appreciated by those other than the prurient thanks to some fine acting, cinematography, and an emphasis on characterization rather than skin.
All is hunky dory for Mitsuko Fuji (Noriko Tatsumi) when the picture opens. She is married to an ostensibly successful man and has just hired a new maid named Maya (Mari Iwai) to keep her company and clean up around the house. However, not ten minutes of screen time passes before all that changes.

Turns out her hubby wasn't doing as well in his field as she thought, and his untimely death has left her with a large debt. One of her husband's creditors, Kito (Tadashi Oizumi), is willing to help her financially provided she service him sexually--and there you have your title.

It's interesting that what separates non-consensual sex and consensual sex is courtship. Kito isn't necessarily a bad man; he just skips the most vital part of a relationship--its construction. All right, anyone capable of doing what he does is a bad man. But surely his position of wealth and power has made him feel entitled. Power corrupts.

So instead of earning her affection, he goes straight for Mitsuko's private parts, without her permission, and that's what makes him a bastard. Had he kept up his pleasant façade, he might have evaded (or at least postponed) some of the ill feelings the viewer bears toward him once he rapes and continues to manipulate Mitsuko.

For a sexploitation film, it's interesting that Watanabe chose to include a rape scene as one of the earliest moments of sex. I would wager (and hope) that most people are turned off by such a scene and not turned on. But Watanabe handles the scene adroitly, employing a deep, ominous music score to underline the dreadfulness of the situation. Later scenes show an equally smart use of sound during the bump and grind sessions: birds chirping, mellow music and sometimes dead silence except for the occasional moan and heavy breathing.

From an aesthetic standpoint, it is difficult to appreciate the softcore pornography of today. Most of it is TV quality, features substandard acting by humans that have been artificially enhanced, and tells a story that appears to have been thought up five minutes prior to shooting.

For softcore with some filmic value, we can turn to the Japanese "sexploitation" of forty years ago with filmmaker Momoru Watanabe's "Slave Widow." I have put sexploitation in quotations because although that is how it is billed by the studio Cinema Epoch, it is a term I suspect was used to describe the movement after the fact. (I've just learned that these types of movies were known as "pink films" during their heyday in Japan).
Fact is, titillation and cinema have been happy bedfellows since the medium was born. Genres are mostly a handy classification for later discussion and marketing. "Slave Widow" can be described as softcore, or grindhouse, or sexploitation, but like the best of the films in those genres, it can be appreciated by those other than the prurient thanks to some fine acting, cinematography, and an emphasis on characterization rather than skin.
All is hunky dory for Mitsuko Fuji (Noriko Tatsumi) when the picture opens. She is married to an ostensibly successful man and has just hired a new maid named Maya (Mari Iwai) to keep her company and clean up around the house. However, not ten minutes of screen time passes before all that changes.

Turns out her hubby wasn't doing as well in his field as she thought, and his untimely death has left her with a large debt. One of her husband's creditors, Kito (Tadashi Oizumi), is willing to help her financially provided she service him sexually--and there you have your title.

It's interesting that what separates non-consensual sex and consensual sex is courtship. Kito isn't necessarily a bad man; he just skips the most vital part of a relationship--its construction. All right, anyone capable of doing what he does is a bad man. But surely his position of wealth and power has made him feel entitled. Power corrupts.

So instead of earning her affection, he goes straight for Mitsuko's private parts, without her permission, and that's what makes him a bastard. Had he kept up his pleasant façade, he might have evaded (or at least postponed) some of the ill feelings the viewer bears toward him once he rapes and continues to manipulate Mitsuko.

For a sexploitation film, it's interesting that Watanabe chose to include a rape scene as one of the earliest moments of sex. I would wager (and hope) that most people are turned off by such a scene and not turned on. But Watanabe handles the scene adroitly, employing a deep, ominous music score to underline the dreadfulness of the situation. Later scenes show an equally smart use of sound during the bump and grind sessions: birds chirping, mellow music and sometimes dead silence except for the occasional moan and heavy breathing.