LOVE EXPOSURE (Japan, 2008)
Directed by: Sion Sono
Starring: Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakura Ando, Makiko Watanabe, Atsuro Watabe

It’s too bad words like “masterpiece” and “epic” have been so overused by excitable film critics because Sion Sono’s LOVE EXPOSURE is an actual epic masterpiece that is going to dominate the filmscape for decades, and not a single American distributor has the guts to release it. NYAFF audiences remember Sono from his hairy horror movie EXTE a few years ago, and others remember him for his over-the-top SUICIDE CLUB and NORIKO’S DINNER TABLE. But now he’s gone and out-done himself with a four-hour movie about faith, religion, pornography, upskirt photography, fighting females and the Virgin Mary all scored to the insistent, pounding, slow-burning climax of Ravel’s “Bolero.”

Based on the life of one of Sono’s friends, LOVE EXPOSURE is all about Yu, the son of a Catholic priest who loses his religion when his mother dies. Obsessed with sin and confession, Dad criticizes the state of his son’s spotless soul, claiming that his confessions are weak and simple and that he must confess real sins. Unable to make anything up, there’s nothing for Yu to do but become a sinner, and so the confused kid learns the ninja-tastic martial art of taking up-skirt photographs. Now a full-fledged pornographer he’s really got something to confess, earning beatings from his shocked dad. But in the middle of his new career, while dressed (as the result of losing a bet) as Sasori, the hero of a series of 70’s women-in-prison movies, Yu meets the love of his life, Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima), who’s in the middle of beating up a bunch of horrible men. Drag-clad Yu jumps into the fray and that’s when things get complicated. A villainess appears in the person of the giggling young schoolgirl, Aya (Sakura Ando) who shows up, stroking her green parakeet the way a Bond villain strokes his white cat, and soon she’s manipulating these two star-crossed lovers in the name of the cult for which she works, the Zero Church.

With special effects by Yoshihiro Nishimura (TOKYO GORE POLICE) and action by Tak Sakaguchi (BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL) LOVE EXPOSURE has proven to be one of the biggest arthouse hits of all time in Japan, running for well over three months to sold-out shows, packed with teenagers. In this movie Sono pulls porn up from the gutter, and religion down from the heavens until the two meet and the most debased and the most divine become mirror images of each other, an alchemical marriage as breathtaking as turning lead into gold. Full of astonishing moments, you’ll see God in an upskirt photograph, and you’ll see an abuse victim in the Virgin Mary’s face. 

Co-presented by JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film