Berlinale. "Love Exposure"

By David Hudson on 02/06/2009

"Savage, overwhelming, baroque and opulent, in 'Love Exposure' ["Ai no mukidashi"] he composes the extremes of human behavior into an ecstatic passion choreographed to religious music, the Bolero, the funeral march and the Japanese band Yura Yura Teikoku's J-Pop music."

Yes, the catalogue description of Sono Sion's new one certainly makes it sound like a grand time. But I'm here to tell you there are better ways to spend four hours. That's right, four hours. To be fair, Sono does keep things moving along and, much of the time, you well and truly do not know what might happen next - that's what keeps most (though not all) viewers in their seats. Each derailing twist and turn in the story of a teen in search of a Mommy/Maria substitute is just interesting enough to carry you to the next one. A few of the gags work (e.g., snapping upskirt shots as a martial art) - the first time - and there are even occasional moments of poignancy and suspense. But the vast swaths of sheer silliness in between smear away anything Sono might have wanted to say about, oh, cults and Catholicism, family bonding and disbanding - or love.

Updated.

"Why is a four-hour film so popular, with audiences and programmers alike?" asks Mark Schilling, who talks with Sono for the Japan Times. "Instead of directorial grandiosity, Sono delivered an unpretentious mix of broad satire, much of which targets religion in various guises; stylish, if borderline silly, martial-arts action; and full-throated affirmations of love, voiced by the sweet-faced teenage hero, who also happens to be an enthusiastic voyeur."

Meanwhile, at Twitch, Mack has news of Sono's next project.

More on "Love Exposure" in German: Thomas Groh and Ekkehard Knörer (taz).

Update: "Evoking an unhinged Ken Russell on a sushi binge, helmer Sion Sono's rep for excess ('Suicide Club') is consolidated by this delirious, hypnotic four-hour marathon about a teenage up-skirt snapper and his sacred love," writes Russell Edwards in Variety. "Sono napalms Nipponese society's sugar coating by drawing on and transcending the trash aesthetic that excites fanboy Japanologists."

Photo: "Love Exposure," Omega Project, 2008]

Tags: Berlinale 2009, Love Exposure, Sono Sion