Love Exposure
愛のむきだし
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Four hours of upskirt photography, a cult and a first love that is 'the true erection' — Sono's sprawling masterpiece.
Yu Honda's mother, who died when he was small, told him to find a woman like the Virgin Mary. His father, Tetsu, became a Catholic priest after her death and was a gentle one, until a volatile woman, Kaori, became his lover and then left him. Now Tetsu makes his son confess every day. Yu, who has nothing to confess, sets out to sin so that his father will keep listening. He falls in with a gang who teach him to fight and to photograph up women's skirts, and he becomes a master of it without ever being aroused. His father calls him a pervert and hits him, and Yu takes the blows as love, until Tetsu refuses to hear him at all.
Losing a bet, Yu has to go into the city dressed as a girl, and names his disguise Scorpion. He finds a schoolgirl, Yoko Ozawa, fighting a street gang alone, fights beside her, kisses her and runs. It is the first time he has been in love. Yoko falls for Scorpion. Then Kaori comes back, Tetsu announces he will marry her, and the girl she has taken in is Yoko. Abused by her father, Yoko hates men, and she despises Yu.
Aya Koike, a young leader in a cult called the Zero Church and herself abused by her father, sets her sights on Yu's family. She persuades Yoko that she is Scorpion, exposes Yu's photography, and draws Tetsu, Kaori and Yoko into the church. Yu kidnaps Yoko and holds her in a derelict bus by the sea, where for a moment she listens, but the cult takes her back. Yu joins the church to get near her, and at last climbs its headquarters dressed as Scorpion, with a sword and a bomb. Yoko, fully indoctrinated, tries to strangle him. The police arrive, Koike kills herself, and Yu loses his mind.
In a psychiatric hospital he believes he is Scorpion and does not know Yoko when she comes for him. She is driven away in a police car. Then he remembers, runs after the car, smashes its window, and she takes his hand.
Starring
Takahiro Nishijimaas Yu Honda
A priest's son who invents sins to keep his father's attention and becomes an expert upskirt photographer.
Yu Honda’s story
Yu keeps the statue of the Virgin Mary his mother left him, and her wish that he find his own Mary. When his father demands a confession every day, Yu sins to have something to confess, masters upskirt photography, and takes his father's blows as love. Disguised as Scorpion, he fights beside Yoko and falls in love for the first time, only for her to move in as his stepsister, despising him. Exposed by Koike, he is thrown out and loses his family to her cult. He kidnaps Yoko, joins the church to reach her and storms it as Scorpion. When Yoko tries to strangle him and Koike smashes his mother's statue, he loses his mind, until, in hospital, he remembers Yoko, chases the police car taking her away and smashes its window to reach her hand.
Hikari Mitsushimaas Yoko Ozawa
A schoolgirl who takes on street gangs alone, hates men after her father's abuse, and falls for Scorpion.
Yoko Ozawa’s story
Abused by her father, Yoko trusts no man; her first love is the stranger, Scorpion, who fought a street gang beside her. Taken in by Kaori, she moves into Tetsu's house and cannot stand his son. Koike convinces her that she is Scorpion, and Yoko follows her into the Zero Church. Kidnapped by Yu and held in a bus by the sea, she shouts the Bible's chapter on love at him; only when he starts to read it himself does she look at him openly. The cult takes her back, and at its headquarters she tries to strangle him. Living with relatives afterwards, she sees that he was the one trying to save her. When he does not know her at the hospital, she is taken away by the police, and takes his hand through the window he smashes.
Sakura Andoas Aya Koike
A young leader in the Zero Church, abused by her own father, who sets out to take Yu's family into the cult.
Aya Koike’s story
Koike is Yu's age, a young leader of the Zero Church who commits crimes to fund it. She catches Yu at his photography, is intrigued to hear that he does it to have sins to confess, and sets out to bring him and his whole family into the church. She follows and films him, bugs his home, moves into his class and convinces Yoko that she is Scorpion. She wins over Tetsu and Kaori, spreads evidence of Yu's photography around the school and, once he is thrown out, takes his family to the church. When he hides Yoko in a bus by the sea, her people find them. At the headquarters, as Yoko strangles him, Koike smashes the statue of the Virgin Mary his mother left him, watches him break with delight, and takes her own life.
Atsuro Watabeas Tetsu Honda
Yu's father, a widower turned priest, whose affair with Kaori leaves him bitter and hard on his son.
Makiko Watanabeas Kaori
A volatile woman who becomes Tetsu's lover, leaves him, and comes back with Yoko in her care.
Why it matters
Love Exposure runs four hours and moves between slapstick, kung fu, melodrama and scripture, but its subject is plain: children denied love who go looking for it wherever they can. Yu invents sins so that his father will keep listening. Yoko and Koike were abused by their fathers; one arms herself with hatred of men, the other gives herself to a cult that sets out to swallow a whole family. Sono based the story on a real upskirt photographer he had met some twenty years before. The film plays the photography as comedy, a sin committed without desire, and an observer may find it harder to laugh at than the film does: the women in those pictures never agreed to be seen. At the 2009 Berlin film festival it won the Caligari Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize.