romance has direct precedents in the
"Pink" movies of New Wave director Wakamatsu Koji, whose 1965 production
Kabe No Naka No Himegota (Secret Act Inside Walls) created
a scandal when it was screened at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival.
The Overfiend directly echoes its college campus setting, where a
socially inept student descends into madness and then rapes, tortures
and murders an innocent housewife. Politically radical directors
such as Koji and, to a lesser extent, Oshima Nagisa, deliberately
posited sexual and political repression as equally destructive forces,
equating the liberation of sexuality with political freedom of expression.
Paradox remains inherent in this thesis: by showing the outcome of sexual
repression in scenes of graphic torture and rape, the filmmakers are still
engaging in sexual exploitation of the female participants.
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