Ami (Ry˘ko Watanabe) is the perfect example of a Japanese housewife: her husband is a businessman, seemingly doing quite well, she's got a couple of friends that are as much work acquaintances as they are personal acquaintances, and she's sexually unfulfilled by her husband's busy lifestyle. Ami's friend drunkenly tells her that it's a growing trend among young housewives to get secret work as prostitutes during the day while their husbands are away. Ashamed but intrigued, she tries it out, and quickly finds herself addicted to the violent, thrilling encounters.
Director/writer Hidehiro Ito is a true film director, depicting Ami's descent with a shocking openness, without so much of the seediness that other films would reflexively include. Each of the film's encounters are shown in remarkably explicit detail, although some Japanese censorship laws are awkwardly adhered to: Ito cuts around women's crotches, even when characters have their faces buried in them, and one sequence involving a naked man actually has giant, white circles obscuring the image -- showing the male buttocks was once illegal. (The more you know...)
At the same time, the film's duties as a pink film seem to get in the way of Ito's intentions as a character piece. Despite plenty of focus on Ami's reactions to the physical abuse her suitors put her through, Ito never settles on a clear perspective from which the viewer should consider the events. Debauchery could be viewed as a criticism of the closed-off nature of Japanese men, of the untapped desires of Japanese housewives, a comment on the lengths to which any women have to go to experience sexual freedom, but in not picking any of these it sort of ends up being none of them. It would help if we knew what Ami wanted out of the encounters: the freedom, the sex, or the thrills. Instead, the ending almost criticizes Ami, both in the way the film punishes her but also the way her decisions affect a bizarre side character, a homeless man who turns into a rapist after seeing Ami naked.
Debauchery has the germ of an idea in it and someone willing to set up that idea with a patience and tenderness usually ignored in these types of films, but when push comes to shove, exploitation wins out over character drama. I was intrigued by Ami's actions but never compelled or sympathetic as Ito drifts away from motivation and meaning and closer towards the title's bottom line.
The Video and Audio
Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 sounds a little canned, with a softness akin to the picture and a dated mix that is more about pure, straightforward clarity than trying to create a realistic aural experience. Case in point, the, uh, "juicier" noises on this track are elevated and somewhat exaggerated in a way that is almost unintentionally comedic. Optional English subtitles are provided.