Love Hotel

The Love Hotel itself is not the center of the movie. Rather it's the beginning although some scenes are from earlier.

This film is what many directors attempt at but fail. Here Director Shinji Somai succeeded. The story springs from one man but then branches out to others. So multiple stories in one movie but tied together. The camera is used often to help. On occasion there are parts of a set that give a deeper meaning. The final scene (no spoiler) was noted as it's an extended scene with multiple characters all in a single camera shot.

This is a Pink Eiga so there is some nudity and sex scenes. Probably the weakest part of the movie but still better than many Pinks.

The first time I watched this film I thought it was very good. Thought the acting very good with Noriko Hayami as the female lead very impressive. Then the second time I watched thought it was excellent. Now I watched for the third time and it is even better. Things you first notice, watching again. I highly recommend this movie.

It starts as a really dark movie about two people at their lowest moment, but gradually it becomes sweeter. Somai was crafting this like his second film Sailor Suit entirely with long takes, making it more theater driven. His style is just riveting no matter what. The movie is totally unpredictable. You have no idea where it goes next. The bold eroticism, in a mainstream film, it is pretty much unprecedented. One of my measures of a director is how they tackle eroticism because it reveals, basically, their quality how they relate to the audience. Is it taboo. Shameful. Idealized. Shy. Repressed. Religious.

I think here is a brutal raw truth. Especially for 1985. It is done so well that I am basically taking for granted the heights this film achieves. You are experiencing the characters so intimately, that you are seeing psychologies bare on screen without limit. By the time it ends I feel like, this is the purpose of art. It is voyeuristic. It puts you in peoples heads you would never experience. You miss them when it is done.

It is all in that line he says to her at the start, "You women have it easy." Then the film proceeds to show this woman having it hellishly bad. Not only that, but the other women she encounters too.

When they re-enact the big moment. The movie has done a trick by making its introduction so shocking, it becomes a traumatic memory for we the audience. It does not resonate that these two characters are the same ones, because they have changed so much across the running time. Because when the film began we had no idea.

So we come full circle, and it is a show stopper, since now we know they were decent people. Trauma, eroticism, enlightenment. Cinema was meant for it, but few have the courage to go there.

This film was made in only 10 days!

Often misread, misinterpreted, we need to listen the poetry behind this movie to truly understand it. Keywords are heartache, romantic fatalism, masculinity - femininity and dark secrets. Relationships between main protagonists, the dark heroes of the story, feel so natural and familiar and so is the guillotine that awaits. The tragedy is inevitable. This is probably why the ending hurts so much. We would like a different world, the world that gives the second chance.

Last but not the least, this film throws a light at BDSM love & sexuality in a masterful and poetic way.

Muraki is at wits end after several aspects of his life fall apart simultaneously. He decides to commit suicide but figures on taking someone with him. He books himself in at an hotel and orders in a prostitute. He is set to kill her and then himself but then loses his nerve and flees. Two years later he runs into her again.

Had potential. The story arc was quite poetic, initially, and looked set to go somewhere profound. However, the story was never entirely engaging and there are sub-plots and scenes that go nowhere and slow down the pace of the movie.

Moreover, the poetic development didn't really convert into a profound ending. Ending is more Pretty Woman than Shakespeare - quite conventional. (And yes, I know Pretty Woman was released after this movie, but Pretty Woman was pretty derivative itself).

Ultimately quite weak, and disappointing.

This film was made for Nikkatsu roman porno(not hardcore,off course shot in 35mm).I went to see some kind of erotic movie with couple of guys wearing highschool uniform in Mitaka(on the outskirts of Tokyo). We were shocked after seeing LOVE HOTEL.It was not porno we expected,just beautiful and sad story,great cinematography and good acting!It's just great movie! I saw it again 10 years after,still great to me.Story is not so twisted,written by Takashi Ishii(GONIN),despaired man meets part-time prostitute just before his suicide and sad story starts.

Shinji Soumai who recently passed away is one of most respected director in Japan. It is very very hard to find copy in foreign,but I believe it's worthy,if you like aftertaste like SHELTERING SKY.