MIFF program descriptions are often very misleading, but the one for Love Exposure, somehow, turned out to be spot on, viz:
* * *
Clocking in at just under 240 minutes but never skipping a beat, visionary filmmaker Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Noriko’s Dinner Table) presents an epic love story peppered with religion, perversion and martial arts.
After being forced to confess his sins by his priest father, high school student Yu embarks on a spree of wrongdoing, becoming a ninja-like master of sneak-photography – taking photos up girls’ skirts. Yu’s world is knocked even further off-kilter when he meets Yoko – a man-hating riot girl – and gets involved with a mysterious cult.
Sion’s masterwork is a one of a kind – an iconoclastic, scattershot action-comedy-romance.
* * *
Four hour running time notwithstanding, it's tremendously kinetic and fun, soundtracked by a pop-pastiche stream and packed with free-wheeling action and drama. Blood, scatology, absurdity and perversion all flow freely (erections play an important part in the plot and themes of the film; likewise, even apart from the 'peek a panty' aspects, schoolgirls variously beating up casts of dozens using martial arts, kissing each other in close up, and being tied up by rope feature prominently); at the same time, it has some thoughtful things to say about religion and society (among many other things), and the notion of 'perversion' comes under moderately close scrutiny. Really one of a kind.
(More, including trailer, here.)
(w/ Meribah, Wei, M and JF)
