(Ai no mukidashi, 2008) Nutty, nutty, nutty. Nutty. Sion Sono tops his “Suicide Club” with the four-hour “Love Exposure,” a revenge-drama-martial-arts-sex-comedy-romantic-nostalgic telling of the life of a Tokyo teenager, the son of a priest, who thinks of himself as “king of the perverts” and becomes an up-skirt photographer and sometimes cross-dresser; pornography and doomsday cults are also involved. (It’s longer than “Gone with the Wind” and hits more emotional heights and low-comedy depths: think “Gone With The Kawaii.”) And the love of Kurt Cobain. And a renegade erection: first love as a “sinful boner.” And Corinthians 13. And schoolgirl’s panties. But! Under all the clashing components, there are complex narrative strategies, moral contemplation, consistent, theatrical acting and laugh-out-loud comedy. A cosmopolitan, cross-cultural comparison would be Almodóvar-and-hentai-meet-Rivette, but that particular mash-up would likely only occur to inveterate, voracious filmgoers. The average viewer could take it as “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” on an unexpected surfeit of narcotics: it’s pop with heart and soul and a level of energy that would break a lesser filmmaker. It’s a daffy, sometimes-baffling charmer. Plus, the Japanese censors (or at least Sion’s financiers) must’ve gotten a month’s work out of however many cuts this juggernaut went through from its six-hour original running time. With Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakura Ando, Makiko Watanabe, Atsuro Watabe. 237m. (Ray Pride)
“Love Exposure” plays Saturday-Monday and Wednesday at Siskel. A trailer is below.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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