Love Exposure

For the first of my reviews I wanted to go with the movie that I deemed as, "The Craziest Movie That I Have Ever Seen." And it's a love story...

Love Exposure directed by Shion Sono is ultimately a story of love. It's about love between men, women, careers, hobbies, and even God. In this story, the audience is given a treat to witness all forms of love. Love is usually synonymous with happiness, hearts, candy, the color red, and all the mushy stuff, but in this movie you get a different view of the negative perceptions as well. For example is it called "love" if you love your sister? Is it love if it is with your daughter, your clique, your gang, or your fetish to eat hair? I think, Yes. It can be called love. I felt that the movie did an excellent job in showing all the other kinds of "love" that society experiences, which in reality is never so mushy.

The movie is about a boy named Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) who is looking for "the one." In this case his "Virgin Mary." In his Catholic upbringing, Yu is told by his terminally ill mother to make sure that he finds his "Mary." In the early years of his teens he is happy and is a devote Catholic with his father Tetsu Honda (Atsuro Watabe) who becomes a priest for their church. Everything is fine until the day that a woman named Kaori Fujiwara (Makiko Watanabe) enters the church and their lives. Thus creating the downward spiral of Yu's experience with love.

This leads Yu down a path of gangs, sins, fights, cutting school, petty crimes, voyeurism, and meeting the girl of his dreams, Yoko Ogawa (Hikari Mistushima). While carrying out a dare, Yu dresses like a woman named Miss Scorpion and comes to the aid of the schoolgirl Yoko who is fending off a gang. During the battle, he falls in love with her and she falls in love with...her. It also happens that the gang that she is fighting off is no random gang. It is all part of a master plan of a cult religion leader, Koike Aye's (Sakura Ando) plot to gain more members and win the affection of Yu Honda and his dysfunctional family.

At a ridiculous time of 237 mins (3 hours and 53 mins) Love Exposure takes you through many degrees and themes of love. One could also argue that the film can be somewhat "pornographic" but it does not do it gratuitously. Each scene is important to the development of the story, character, and the many definitions of love.

So I propose a question to everyone out there: How much are we exposed to love? To what degree? And how much love do we expose to others? Love Exposure answers these questions for the main characters of this film. It's just that as the audience, sometimes the response we get is not necessarily the one we were expecting to receive.

Cinephile Rating: 9.8/10


Love Exposure/Ai no Mukidashi Trailer