Adolecent exposure

Cinema is no stranger to stories about heart wrangling ‘journeys to the end of the night’ a classic example is Fellini’s Satyricon. And in this instance to a lesser extent cinema also has classics related to photograph and the hyper-reality of the simulacrum, such as Blow-Up. If we add into this thematic mix perversion, eroticism, religion, adolescence, cults and the search for a true love then we end up with Shion Sono’s Love Exposure.

Love Exposure’s narrative centres around Yu Honda and a few other associated characters and the tangled web and course that their lives take. Adolescence and that drawn out period of discontent can be a testing time in anyone’s life and for Yu Honda especially so. He is a devout Catholic boy committed to his late mothers parting words and add to this his father is newly ordained priest. Thing start off alright in their new life in the church but the appearance one day of a lost soul of a woman in need of a good Shepard turns things upside down and inside out. Yu’s father embarks on an illicit liaison with the woman, who, soon enough elopes with a younger man leaving Yu’s father broken and emotionally distant from the narrating Yu. And he earnestly yearns for love and an erection.

It is from this point that this 4 hour film starts to kick up a dust storm of desperate emotions. Yu is forced by his father to confess his sins each day. But Yu being the devout boy he is has no sins which to confess. Which poses an existential problem for Yu: how to act when the devout and good life only serves to hinder love? So when push comes to hug Yu forces himself to sin so as to illicit some emotion from his withdrawn father and so begins Yu’s spiralling odyssey through perversion with the manifold aims of attracting his father’s attention and finding his Maria (read true love).

Sion directs with a light touch and a compassion for all his character and their respective back stories and just may have made the longest opening sequence of any film one is likely to see, clocking in at around an hour long. Nothing comes easy for the characters and Yu must learn the hard way and just when it would appear he has reached his destination along comes another obstacle that must be confronted and overcome. But fortunately for us the laughs come easy as this film makes its way with some superbly executed comic scenes. Early on as Yu learns the art of surreptitious panty photography and what it philosophically aspires to there is shot after shot that references other films – this montage becomes something of a Kata of cartoon comedy. It is a mark of a strong story, good direction and dedicated acting that a film of this length can be entertaining for its duration.

Love Exposure goes through many twists and turns and new obstacles are presented before each of the central characters, these all are thrown into the mix of the central narrative that revolves around the search for love and the journey that a good heart must undertake that traverses less than good places. And at four hours this film is very much a journey in itself, but one that reaps a reward of good entertainment.