Belladonna of Sadness is celebrated as a feminist masterpiece as often as it’s lampooned for being another misogynist sexploitation film. I understand the controversy completely, but to define my stance in one sentence: no matter how many watercolors one uses to paint it, rape is not art.

Sexual violence was a given coming into this movie, but it’s simultaneously presented as a voyeuristic spectacle for the viewer while being treated in the narrative as suffering and trauma (which it is).…