In this blog post, I will examine the reasons for choosing Kazuo Hara’s documentary film ‘Extreme Eros’, its plot, and the ethical and visual issues it raises.

Reasons for Choosing the Film

I am a pervert. Perhaps we are all perverts to someone. A pervert is someone who is obsessed with a specific object, and because that object of obsession is so normal, those around them may not even perceive it as perverse. Others may show a strong fixation on objects that others cannot even imagine. Some people openly reveal their perversity, while others detest being discovered. In any case, ultimately, everyone is perverse in their own way.
It is hard to find someone who dislikes movies. Many people say they love movies, yet cinema is an art form that is, to some extent, perverse, deeply intertwined with voyeuristic mechanisms. The gaze within a film is always active, constantly searching for its object. At times, that gaze can become violent toward its object, and cinema craves precisely that gaze. The object—the film—and the subject—the gaze—form a relationship bordering on sadomasochism as they satisfy each other’s desires.
A film director is a masochist who, in order to capture the audience’s gaze, seeks to satisfy their desires, and in the process, sometimes becomes a sadist himself. In that sense, the director is a kind of king of perversion. However, not all directors possess the same level of perversion. Kazuo Hara, the director of ‘Eros in the Extreme’, is a figure who simultaneously reveals a particularly striking perverse gaze and ethical issues. While filming his ex-wife Miyuki for a documentary, he ends up recording the very moment she gives birth to another man’s child. The footage contains a peculiar blend of morality, love, and reverence for his ex-wife, leading me to feel that this film is well worth analyzing.

Synopsis

Intro: The director and Miyuki have a baby, and Miyuki leaves for Okinawa, saying she needs her own space. The director asks for Miyuki’s consent to film her, and the opening unfolds as a photo-novel-style narration by the director.
Sequence 1: In 1972 Okinawa, Miyuki and Sugako get into a fight in Sugako’s room. Sugako barely speaks; they are actually in a lesbian relationship, and Sugako becomes uncomfortable once the director begins filming. Miyuki suspects Sugako is seeing another man, and eventually, the two break up.
Sequence 2: Upon hearing that Miyuki is pregnant, the director visits Okinawa again. The baby’s father is Paul, a Black U.S. soldier. Paul doubts that the child is his, and eventually they part ways as well. Miyuki nevertheless decides to have the baby.
Sequence 3: When the director visits Okinawa for the third time, he brings his current girlfriend with him. The girlfriend appears on screen, serving as a sort of moderator. The director says he is trying to confirm his relationship with Miyuki through this film. At this point, the camera’s gaze is extremely violent and relentless. Miyuki does not trust the director and verbally attacks him. This is followed by a sex scene shot from what appears to be the director’s first-person perspective, and the next scene features a close-up of the director’s girlfriend lying next to him and looking at him.
Sequence 4: The director’s girlfriend, Sachiko, also becomes pregnant. A scene follows where Sachiko and Miyuki discuss the pregnancy, but Miyuki, enraged by the director’s irresponsible attitude, storms out. Miyuki tells Sachiko, “You’re just one of the director’s lovers,” and leaves the set.
Sequence 5: Miyuki grows disillusioned with life in Okinawa and writes a pamphlet detailing her experiences, which she distributes to the public. The pamphlet’s main message is to be wary of encounters with Black people. Misunderstanding this, the locals attack the director and tear up the pamphlets. Eventually, Miyuki leaves by boat.
Sequence 6: In 1973, Miyuki gives birth to a child on her own in the director’s apartment. The child is mixed-race, and the father is likely Paul. Miyuki takes pride in herself. The director’s girlfriend also goes into labor, and Miyuki shares tips with Sachiko based on her own childbirth experience. The director documents both births.
Sequence 7: In 1974, Miyuki lives with a group called “Komunu” in Tokyo. She tried to adopt Sugako’s child but failed; however, the identity of the child’s biological father becomes irrelevant. They raise the babies together. The final scene ends with Miyuki dancing naked in a strip club, and she appears as a character who transcends the film’s framework.

Film Analysis

Documentary Style

Formally, this documentary belongs to the cinéma vérité genre. In other words, it is a style in which the filmmaker is physically present at the scene and aims to convey the unfolding situation exactly as it happens. Although the director rarely appears on screen, the audience always senses his presence through the camera’s gaze and the narration. The camera represents the director’s perspective, and the narration reflects his thoughts. This film guides the audience into the director’s inner world, giving the impression that it aims to convey the feeling of being immersed in the director’s mind.

Filming Style

One of the film’s distinctive features is the prevalence of scenes with out-of-sync audio. It is likely that the shooting environment made it difficult to record sound simultaneously, so the film employs an editing technique where audio capturing similar themes and emotions is layered over the footage to advance the narrative. While this may appear to be artificial editing at first glance, it actually emphasizes the instability and spontaneity of reality, thereby highlighting the documentary’s authenticity.
Miyuki, the subject of the documentary, does not wait for the director to finish setting up every shot. She is a person living her own life, and the director follows her around to document it. In such situations, meticulous sound design and pristine shot composition could actually undermine the reality of the moment.

Ethical Issues

The most controversial scene in the film is likely the sequence showing Miyuki giving birth in a full-frame shot. It is noteworthy not only that the birth scene was filmed at all, but also that the focus in that scene is blurry. The director confesses in the narration that he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn’t pay attention to the focus, but the situation is not that simple.
It is highly likely that Miyuki’s child is not her biological child. The father may be Paul, a Black U.S. soldier. The very act of filming his ex-partner’s childbirth—especially while accompanied by his current lover—clearly raises ethical questions. The director may have used a technical flaw (e.g., the out-of-focus shot) as a defense mechanism to mitigate or justify the criticism he would face. That defense may also have been his only option.

The Issue of Gaze

The director actively intervenes in Miyuki’s life. When he first filmed Miyuki in Okinawa, the director stayed at Sugako’s house to shoot, which made Sugako uncomfortable. Having one’s ex-husband’s partner stay in one’s home while shoving a camera in one’s face can be threatening to anyone. Sugako’s silence early in the Okinawa segment stems from this discomfort.
The director’s gaze is often violent.
Immediately after the scene where Miyuki criticizes the director and his girlfriend, the editing cuts straight to a sex scene between the director and Miyuki. This cut can be interpreted as exposing a flaw in Miyuki’s words and attitude. While it is unclear whether this editing is intended to highlight human flaws or to demonstrate human duplicity, it ultimately gives the audience the impression that the director is taking advantage of Miyuki’s moment of vulnerability.
Furthermore, the camera angles in the sex scene reveal a male-dominant perspective. The director is positioned to “look down” on Miyuki from a high angle, implying physical and psychological superiority. This gaze can contain a violence that seeks to possess or control the subject.
Nevertheless, there is a reason why the issue of the gaze alone cannot fully explain everything in this film. It is precisely because of Miyuki’s attitude. Miyuki does not view herself as a mere object. She transforms the act of being filmed into her own act, acting as both the subject being filmed and the subject doing the filming. Miyuki’s self-assurance partially offsets the director’s explicit gaze, and as a result, a complex relationship intertwined with sadism and masochism is revealed.

Miyuki

Miyuki is portrayed as a progressive feminist who seeks to choose the life she desires. She refuses to rely on anyone else’s power, and this independence is evident even in the scene where she gives birth on her own. Furthermore, in the sex scene with the director, Miyuki is seen enjoying her own pleasure without concerning herself with the camera’s gaze.
Miyuki asserts her existence even in the face of the director’s violent gaze. The final scene, in which she dances naked at a strip club, shows that she is not simply taking her clothes off to make a living. In that scene, she exposes her body by her own choice, enjoys that choice, and stands before the audience as an independent individual. In that moment, Miyuki appears to be a presence that cannot be fully captured by the film.