Shion Sono, the director of import cult classic Suicide Club and recent genre hit Exte: Hair Extensions delivered a four hour, coming-of-age novella that surprised and delighted me in equal measure. Love Exposure deals in thematic shifts rather than simple plot twists, starting with an emo coming of age drama focusing on protagonist Yu. His mother dies when he's very young, and then his father joins the priesthood. Even as we go from situational comedy to broad farce to meet-cute love story (and back and forth), the story jumps narrators to Yoko (the girl he becomes infatuated with), and then later to another girl (who becomes infatuated with him...and Yoko). The stage is set and the pieces are explained about an hour in, when the title card finally drops.
Yu poised to practice Peek-A-Panty Kung Fu
The storytelling touches on finding oneself both as a teenager and an adult, religious fanaticism and cults, hentai (perversion) culture and sexual curiosity, as well as the zen art of upskirt photography and life of an unintentional cross-dresser. Suffice to say that short of retelling the events of the film step by step, it's a tough nut to crack. The simplest reduction I could come up with is that it's about the complications of human intimacy from varying perspectives. I should mention here that the one moment of striking, graphic mutilation in the film threatened to send me on a one-way trip to the lobby. To my great surprise, I was engrossed in the film only moments later.
I must mention here that Love Exposure delivers some of the most comprehensive, even-handed social criticism of religion in modern society that I've seen on the screen of late. The well-intentioned practitioners of true faith don't have the resources or popularity to keep up with false prophets with bigger bankrolls and more sinister plans.
The film is really captivating in a way that feels more like you're watching a four-hour television miniseries all in one sitting. It is extremely weird, but no more so than real life is in one's teen years. The description "really weird four hour Japanese movie that is all over the place" probably doesn't look irresistible to US distributors (even just home video), but I've yet to run into someone who said they hated or even simply disliked the movie. When it really comes down to it, the story of Yuda falling in love with and pursuing Yoko is more interesting than the best parts of the various meet-cute rom-coms of the last decade. Here's hoping it's available for consumption in the US at some point.