Coming to a Japanese theater near you: uncensored female genitilia
Today’s WaiWai column has revealed that a new barrier has been broken down in the battle against censorship:
“Klimt” tells the story of 19th century Austrian artist Gustav Klimt and how he tackled the sexual taboos of his day to influence art around the world.
Klimt was renowned for his portraits of naked and pregnant women, which shocked and startled polite society a little over a century ago.
He’s having the same effect on celluloid in Japan now thanks in part to a single scene in “Klimt” where a woman’s genitals are briefly displayed.
The scene features the artist’s wealthy patron, Serena Lederer, played by Sandra Ceccarelli, turning up at the studio to ask John Malkovich’s Klimt to complain that a portrait she had commissioned had not met its deadline.
“Serena visits the studio just as Klimt is painting a picture of two naked women. One of the models spreads her legs. Her blonde pubic hair is quite thin and you can clearly see her genitals beneath it,” one of the hacks who watched the press screening tells Shukan Post.
On top of the flash of flange, the movie is dotted with scenes where women’s pubic hair, mostly belonging to truly natural blondes, is clearly visible, the men’s weekly says. The revealing display is akin to the first glimpse of male genitalia Japanese filmgoers got when “Kinsey” appeared on screens here last year (see related story linked below).
Just as surprising as the censors letting “Klimt” slit through its usually rigid rulings is that they haven’t even given it an adult’s only rating, instead labeling the film R-15, which restricts audiences to those aged at least 15. That means even high school students can see “Klimt” in all its glory and without the usual digital mosaic that blanks out genitals whenever they’re displayed on films showed in this country.
“It’s because this film is a work of art. It is a work high school students could benefit from seeing,” a spokesman for Media Suits, the Japanese distributor of “Klimt,” tells Shukan Post. “Even Eirin (the Administration Commission of Motion Picture Code of Ethics, the body that censors movies shown in Japan) decided that the nudity in the film did not result from sex scenes, but that they (the genitals) were visible only because of the scarcity of pubic hair and nothing could be done about it.”
The Japanese can now see male and female genitilia in films that deal with them in an art/medical context. It’s only a matter of time until this ultra-slow liberalization of censorship reaches the porn industry…or is it?
