Prière d'extase

Although it can barely be considered a linear film, a story with a proper "beginning, middle and conclusion," "Gushing Prayer" still manages to tell a story, through avant garde visuals and plain "weirdness," a story of truly jaded youth. The four teenage friends who are bent on "beating sex," or proving that sex is something that adults place too much importance on, by way of prostituting the youngest member of their group. Yasuko claims to feel nothing, as she embarks on a surreal odyssey of cold, clinical sex with random strangers, mostly older men, and even her high school teacher, who is all too willing to assist the girl in her "experimentation." Constant voice-overs describing various teen suicides, combined with some truly eerie, bleak cinematography, lends this film a sad and emotionally hopeless feel. The photography is truly sublime, with it's bleak b/w scenes of the kids wandering through foggy landscapes, cold, abandoned beaches and city streets, always discussing the vapidity of sex and human contact. Certain scenes filmed in garish, shocking color serve to break up the dreamlike atmosphere, and the color symbolizes something perhaps too oblique to recognize. The visuals are really what make "Gushing Prayer" so special, as well as the strange feeling of melancholy that it creates, when combined with the hypnotic soundtrack, Content-wise, I suppose this can be considered the Japanese answer to Larry Clark, {"Ken Park, "Kids"), with it's commentary on sexuality among young people. But Clark's films possess NONE of the artistic flourishes and the majestic visual beauty found in this, and other Japanese films. The reviewer that claimed they were "bored" by this both astounded and saddened me...I feel sorry for people who lack the ability to leave their own reality and be swept into the kind of hypnotic netherworld that is created in films like this. "Gushing Prayer" was once nearly impossible to find until the recent bluray release, which is also extremely hard to come by. It is presented as a double feature with the equally sublime and similar film "Inflatable Sex Dolls of the Wastelands," and both films are recommended to fans of the Japanese "pinku eiga" genre, as they are true works of art.

The danger of falling for MUBI's "film of the day" is that sometimes one trusts their curation a bit too much and, with no reviews on IMDB, nothing to counter that.

However, on the positive side, this is clearly a film attempting to do a bit more than the usual, and transcend its small budget (e.g. mainly in black and white, with small excursions into colour). Some of the acting is not that bad, particularly from the main character, but others are clearly not very natural on camera. In my view, this isn't helped by the script, which is attempting to delve into philosophical matters, including the ultimate meanings of sex and life. This leads to some fairly stilted moments - not unlike de Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom - where they break off from the action for a long disquisition on other matters. This isn't in his league, though.

Even though it's not a long film, I realised about two-thirds of the way through that I was just waiting for it to end, which is never a good sign. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, but maybe that's the problem.

Not recommended, really.