The Misunderstanding and Necessity of ‘Belladonna of Sadness’
Content Warning: Sexual Assault
It seems that every few weeks we revisit the discussion over the inclusion of rape and sexual assault scenes in media. Some think that including such horrific events in a story is critical and can be cathartic, while others maintain that explicit scenes of sexual violence are unnecessary and needlessly traumatic. It is unlikely that this discussion will ever truly end, as it involves individual opinions and unique reactions to trauma rather than a basis in theory.
Both sides are true, but it all comes down to how these scenes are depicted and followed up upon. Perhaps no other film has shown both the physical and mental anguish of assault quite like the 1973 Japanese animated film Belladonna of Sadness.
Belladonna follows the story of Jeanne (Aiko Nagayama), a woman who is viciously raped by the village Lord (Masaya Takahashi) shortly following her wedding. Dazed and broken, she is visited by a mysterious visitor who promises to help her take revenge on those who wronged her. She declines, as she was previously told by her husband Jean (Katsutaka Ito) to forget about the past and to start their new life. However, the creature brings the couple good fortune to sway her, with Jeanne’s trauma worsening when it isn’t around. What follows is Jeanne being forced to embrace the visitor, who is the Devil in disguise, and his promises to give her the power she’s always wanted.
With a description like that, it is easy to understand why it wouldn’t be a film for everyone, despite the gorgeous animation and artwork. However, one look at its Letterboxd reviews, and you would think it was fetishistic torture porn that only exists to glorify violence against women. In fact, it is quite the opposite. While Jeanne’s sexual assaults are depicted in the film’s signature style, the pulsating phallic imagery and her screams of terror depict nothing but pain, violation, and destruction. They are never meant to be sexual or fetishistic, but rather depressing and revolting.
Whether she is assaulted at the hands of royalty or the Devil, Jeanne is never happy. She tries to put each encounter beside her to stay true to Jean’s promise of new beginnings. However, the problem with surviving assault is that one cannot just pretend it never happened. Whether it sticks in one’s head forever or their mind blocks out the trauma, not getting help in the assault’s aftermath will always come back to haunt a survivor. In Jeanne’s case, she is constantly haunted, pretending like she isn’t hurt and angry at what happened to her. However, her mental state disintegrates as she lets her delusions take control until she has to act.
This broken, degraded version of Jeanne is what the Devil wanted all along. As she becomes less stable, he grows stronger and torments her more violently until she gives up. When Jeanne finally tells the Devil she’ll sell her soul to him, she feels as if she has nothing else left to live for. Jeanne essentially kills herself for the Devil against a kaleidoscope of sexual imagery and bright colors.
Of course, the Devil isn’t actually real. Neither is the film’s infamous orgy scene where the townsfolk consume some of Jeanne’s new elixirs. You can probably wager that the only actual events of Belladonna are Jean and Jeanne’s marriage and her subsequent rape by the Lord. However, every outlandish and trippy image is real to her because she doesn’t know what reality even is anymore.
Ultimately, this film showcases the central problem of the assault-in-media debate. The film is not subtle in the fact that it’s a surrealistic depiction of Jeanne’s anguish rather than a literal interpretation. Hell, there’s a reason it’s called Belladonna of Sadness. The problem is when every depiction of assault, no matter how condemning and abstract, is written off as the fetishization of women’s suffering. Many so-called art purists claim that those who do not seek out Belladonna due to its graphic nature do not lack media literacy. However, these claims are focused on the wrong crowd. Instead, those who watch it and other ambiguous films and choose to view it as a strictly linear story are the ones lacking understanding and nuance.