Love Exposure (Siono Ono, 2008, Japan)
Storyline
Three emotionally abused individuals from the fringes of society get locked in a convoluted love triangle. Yuu, a Catholic boy searching for true love ends up taking "panty shot" photos of women in public until he discovers Yoko, whom he sees as his Virgin Mary. Yoko, an anti-family, misandrist girl finds that her foster mother will be marrying Yuu's father. Koike, an "original sinner" and the regional leader of a brainwashing cult, co-ordinates a plan to convert Yuu's family to her cult. Under her careful direction, their lives come crashing together in one fateful street fight.
You know it’s gonna be good when the Cinefamily blocks off an entire one-week run for a single film (only the second time since their inception as a delightfully indie arthouse theatre.) Starting next week, the fine folks at the Cinefamily presents the first U.S. theatrical run of Love Exposure (Sion Sono,) touted as the most amazing unreleased film of the last decade!
The Cinefamily: “Ask yourself this question: when was the last time a movie really mattered to you, and shattered your world? Every so often, a film comes screaming out of the ether that magically reveals a larger truth about this thing we stumble through called life, and the latest cinematic salve is the unforgettable, uncategorizable, unmissable Love Exposure, the brand-new behemoth from Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Strange Circus) that gleefully tackles life’s biggest issues: love, death, sex, revenge, religion and up-skirt panty photography.
“Winner of festival awards across the globe, and breaker of art house attendance records in Japan, Love Exposure has only been seen in the U.S. at a handful of sell-out screenings, with its initially daunting 237 minutes leaving audiences desperate for another installment.
“Purportedly based on the life of one Sono’s friends, the film tells the epic story of Yu, a teenager who loses his Catholic faith when his mother dies and his bible-thumping priest father demands that the innocent boy confess to sins that he hasn’t committed. As he manufactures sins to keep his father pleased, Yu trains in the ‘art’ of panchira (clandestine panty snapshots!), and all bets are off when he crosses paths with Yoko, the woman of his dreams (his “Virgin Mary”), at a streetfight. As he pursues his heart, Yu finds hims
watch online:
part 1:
part2:
part 3: