Ai no mukidashi

Kind-hearted Yu has no choice. His father, a Catholic priest, is urging him to confess, but in order to confess he must sin, and the only sin his cynical father recognizes as such is sexual perversion. So Yu becomes the King of Tokyo’s photo voyeurs – until he meets the Maria of his religious fantasies in the form of schoolgirl Yoko. However, not only does she turn out to be a man-hating rebel, she’s also the stepdaughter of the priest’s lover, and later on she is used as bait by an unscrupulous sect that wants to ensnare the desperate Yu. Child abuse, fetishism, Catholicism, sects: Sono Sion has never shied away from politically incorrect themes. Savage, overwhelming, baroque and opulent, in Love Exposure 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. But not all that glitters is camp. Thanks to the candor with which he exposes a love that in the end overcomes all lies, despite all its tempestuousness this almost four-hour-long but nonetheless extremely entertaining film never loses its tension for even a single moment.