Ai no mukidashi

Love Exposure is Sion Sono's first truly great film. As much as I was truly creeped out and disturbed by his previous modern horror classic "Suicide Circle" I was equally bored and repulsed by his "Strange Circus", so much so I had written Sonno off as a hack who got lucky. Love Exposure continues Sono's themes of alienated youth on the fringes of cults and the extremes of pop culture, but here he gives himself the freedom to be funny, sweet, frail, absurd, and exciting.

The story begins with a catholic boy named Yu whose mother dies, but not before asking to him to swear that he will find a woman like the Virgin Mary to make his wife. His father out of grief dedicates himself to the priesthood, and all is well until a romantic "detour" in his life, leaves him a sin obsessed and emotionally vacant shell whose Jeremiah's and interrogations of his son become his only solace.

He insists Yu make daily confessions, and though Yu wants to oblige, he cant think of any wrongs he might possibly have committed, that is until he begins committing some sins of his own. His small sins are quickly not enough for his father who thinks he's just making it up and not really concerned with sin and thus his immortal soul.

It is only when he meets a group of street kids, and begins learning the secret art of up skirt panty photography (peek-a-panty), that his father reacts and beats him, finally not acting like an impartial priest but an enraged father.

This backfires a bit for Yu when his father moves out of the house completely, to live in the church and be "closer to God". This is all played out in black comedy fashion, the peek-a-panty training sequence which uses elements of kung-fu and acrobatics to capture the naughty pics, being some of the most especially funny.

Yu's incorruptibility while he performs these increasingly corrupt acts is another thing that keeps this movie from wallowing in its transgressions. Yu only wants his father to love him and really does believe his sins will please him and bring them closer together. In fact none of the characters even the film's villain, the young leader and "criminal mastermind" of the Zero Church (a Scientology/Aum inspired cult; the Aum carried out the deadly Serin gas attacks in a Tokyo subway in 1995, an event which seems central to much of Sono's work) named Koike, who strokes a small green parrot like a James Bond villain, is motivated throughout the havoc she wreaks, not by a desire for world domination, by her love for Yu.

Yu out one day in drag after losing a bet, encounters a group of inexplicable street toughs harassing a girl, who comes to resemble "his Maria" the girl he has been searching for all this time (and who he insists he will know because she will be the first to give him an erection). What ensues is a kung fu fight in town square, that ends with a sweet if confusing kiss, exchanged by the star crossed lovers.

Confusing because Yoko (his Maria), believes her first kiss was with a woman (Ms. Scorpion) and that she may now be a lesbian, which coincides nicely with her understandable "hatred of men" stemming from her abusive father. To make a four hour story short, Yu and Yoko become step brother and sister, and Yu is put in a Tootsie/Spiderman like position of having created an alter-ego the love of his life is more interested in than "the real him".

Then things heat up, dramatically and under the collar, when Koike whose been observing impassively for the first hour or so, enters the picture claiming to be Ms. Scorpion (Yu's alter ego, the spitting image of Blank Blank in Lady Prisoner), and seducing Yoko (in many a lesbian school girl make-out session) in order to get closer to Yu.

I'll stop there with plot, because there are still two and half more hours I would have to describe.

Goodness and perversion are the two twin themes throughout the film, just as I've said each character is motivated in some ways by love, but they all different definitions of what love is. These definitions are more often than not imposed by some social barrier or psychological scar from childhood.

Some may be bothered by the "weirdness", "perversity", or sacrilege in the film, but everything is in its right place, in its right measure, and nothing is exploitative. The immersion in perversion and the obscene recalls another great modern spiritual film Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" where bodies are used and abused with drugs and degraded sex, in order to make the contrast between the spiritual and non physical more clear.

Ken Russell's The Devils and Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc, both focus on the material, hostile, and outrageous, to show the pure spirit; God struggling in the world, as the spirit/mind struggles with the body. For Sono the material world is one of porn, guilt, self flagellation, but above all love. Though love may lead take on one on many a strange "detour" in life, it ultimately really does conquer all (see Corinthians 13).

For these reasons and too many more to write down, Sonos up-skirt peek-a-panty ninja quest for the Virgin Mary as Holy Grail is one of the best love stories, coming of age tales, and movies of the decade. This movie is a strange brew of the theatrical and the uncommonly sensitive, in a way that truly has to be seen for yourself. I hope when it gets released stateside it comes with its full run time intact, because it's the first four hour movie I've ever seen that I sincerely didn't want to end.

Imagine the perfect movie, and there will never be a better one after that. I saw "Love Exposure" today at the Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt. It's a masterpiece. The best 4 hours of cinema I have ever seen. It's so heartbreaking, my knees are still shaking and I have to say, I cried like a Baby at the End. Forget everything you've ever seen before and go on a ride you will never forget. Sion Sono is a goddamn genius. And the best about it, it's not a second to long. On the contrary, the movie cut is very fast. I hope Rapid Eye Movies will release a uncut DVD and Blu-ray version in Germany. It's very rare you feel those magic moments in cinema these days.

Wolfgang

For me, "Love Exposure" is something of a terrific one-off experience. How to begin to describe with any degree of rationality the extraordinary effect of bewildering excitement it has had on a near octogenarian, is a task I find daunting. And yet for a work unlike any other in its helter-skelter delivery of an adolescent's quest for romantic fulfilment ( which I suppose is what it is all about), I feel I should at least take up the challenge. With such an engagingly innocent central character as schoolboy Yu, it seems completely natural to suspend disbelief and go along with everything he experiences, including his hilarious initiation into the skills of a panty photographer, his role as father-confessor at a perverts' convention and his attack with explosives and much blood letting on the HQ of a brainwashing religious cult. Buried beneath it all there could well be many serious messages (you get a big chunk of Corinthians!) or it could be just a pile of tosh. But in the end, who cares, such is the delirious pleasure that just under four hours of outrageous goings-on have delivered. I suppose I just love the theme of innocent youngsters taking on the wicked world. Gosh! I am still reeling, my critical faculties all but shattered!

I've never been so immersed in a film that lasted 4 hours as much as I was with this, and before you know it the film ends! This is one of the greatest I've ever seen and hardly no one has watched it even over 10 years on! It'll be hard recommending it cause of how abstract it is.

The acting is quite eccentric and surreal story basis is perfectly timed and laid out. I had an instant love for the crazy characters and their journey throughout this epic feature. If I was to give any advice before watching, keep an open mind. If you like films that are different from the mainstream then this is for you.

I can't praise it enough and definitely rate it with some of the greatest films in cinema history. One of a kind

10/10

This was part of Film 4's recent 'Extreme Season' and it's easy to see why. Film critic and introducer to the film, Mark Kermode unravelled a whole heap of adjectives in trying to describe its virtues - and I think he only scraped the surface.

Yes, we know by now that it's 4 hours long but with the requisite ad breaks, that bumps it up to five. Thus, the very thought of committing the time and effort to this huge chunk of one's valuable life is far worse than actually watching it. Due to other commitments, I had to undertake watching the recording in 3 manageable pieces, turning each into 'normal' film lengths.

Lurching between high melodrama and lamenting ballad, Love Exposure IS a love story. But the most crazy, beautiful and fantastical one you've ever seen. Typically Japanese in going to extremes, at times modern fairytale and then extreme graphic violence almost at the turn of a hat.

Somehow, strangely all the characters are endearing, especially the two central ones, Yu and Yoko. Yoko must have the sweetest smile I've ever seen, at times enticing, at others crying painfully. If you think though that this is just about emotional roller-coasting, there are some of the most striking story lines and stunts and ideas that have come from a fertile, imaginative and superb director, that mix martial arts with technology, religion with sex, perversion with love and much more.

The choice of music, from Ravel's 'Bolero' to other brilliant rock pieces, that were repeated in loops really added to the structure and my enjoyment and I'm sure they hypnotised us into feeling the film shorter than it actually was. This was one of the best features of the project.

Unlike the film, I'm going to keep my review shortish. Let's just say that the hype is real, the movie is unforgettable and whilst not quite a Citizen Kane, most film lovers with an open mind and an open heart will find much to enjoy.