Love Exposure (Review)
Tuesday, 2nd February 2010, 17:51

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Extras
Both discs get animated menus, and the film is split evenly between them, 2 hours on one, and 1 hour 57 on the other. The film just stops abruptly at the end of disc 1 and goes back to the main menu. I think a discrete fade to black, or a title card saying ‘insert disc 2 ‘ wouldn’t have been amiss.

Disc 1 gets a 58-minute long making of documentary. This is as far from the usual EPK nonsense as you can get, and the term ‘warts and all’ certainly isn’t amiss here. The cast and the crew are interviewed, as the camera follows director Sono Sion through the breakneck-paced month-long shoot. He’s self-deprecating and honest, when he isn’t exhausted and anxious, and the same can be said of his actors.

Disc 2 gets the usual batch of Third Window trailers, 16 of them in total, which will probably be enough to fill a half hour or so of your time.

Conclusion
I needn’t have worried. Those were the shortest four hours that I can recall. Indeed, I was seriously tempted to just put the second disc in straight after the first, and it was only the lateness of the hour that stayed my hand. Love Exposure zips by like a fleeting moment, and though your posterior may be numbed by the runtime, never once will your gaze stray towards a clock. It’s an absolutely enthralling, fast-paced and gripping story, with fascinating characters and full of twists, turns and delightful surprises. It’s also one of those films that defy simple categorisation, by turns comedy and drama, romance and action, satire and social comment. At heart it is a deceptively simple story, but it has so many layers to it, so much depth that as the end credits rolled, I was sorely tempted to watch it again straight from the beginning.

It’s also charmingly profane, and unashamed of the offence it may cause. It picks its targets and goes after their jugulars, wringing as much satiric comment and comedy from them as possible. Perhaps the most contentious, in the West at any rate, would be the Catholic Church, which as an institution is shown as relatively benign, but some of the practitioners of the faith leave a bit to be desired. Yu’s upbringing was certainly coloured by his faith, with the themes of sin and guilt playing strongly on both his and his father’s minds. Tetsu becomes a priest following the death of Yu’s mother, and then gets into a proscribed relationship with a parishioner. When it ends badly, he becomes obsessed with sin, his own and his son’s. Aya Koike’s father is also a priest, although he is far more abusive and destructive a figure than Tetsu. So much so that he drives Aya to the Zero Church.

The Zero Church is just the next of this film’s targets, a repressive and secretive cult, promising nirvana to its adherents, and a smokescreen for something a whole lot more sinister. You can equate it to any cult you can think of, but in today’s society, it’s hard not to think of the Church of Scientology when you see how the Zero Church is portrayed. Of course there is then the comment on otaku and the apparent formalisation of Japan’s pervert culture. Yu seeks sins to sate his father’s obsession with rooting out perversion, and the one that seems to connect him most strongly with his father is the pursuit of upskirt panty shots. Surreptitious snappers sneakily wield cameras and try and get the best possible photos of women’s underwear. Yu actually goes to panty shot school, to learn the kung-fu ninja skills required to get the best shots without being caught, and by doing so, he becomes the envy of his friends, and begins climbing a social hierarchy that he was unaware even existed.

I could be here for paragraphs more, as I’ve barely touched the pre-credits sequence (I think 60-odd minutes has to be some sort of a record). But there is so much to this film that is really worth discovering for yourself. It’s probably the most unconventional love story that I have ever seen, and I was thrilled with the way it could switch from comedy to drama at the drop of a hat without compromising its characters. In fact the characters are richly drawn and enthralling, seeing them develop and watching as the film unpeels the layers to them is a large part of the film’s charm. Love Exposure will take you on a roller coaster ride of emotions, and I found it to be profoundly entertaining. It must be said though that it probably isn’t for everyone. It deserves its 18 rating, and there will be moments in this film that do offend. And believe me, there are scenes that will have grown men crossing their legs and wincing in sympathy. It’s irreverent, it’s profane, and it has the most appropriate conclusion to a film that I have seen in a long, long time. After four hours of Love Exposure, you will be left wanting more.

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