Event

Love Exposure

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, Exte: Hair Extensions) 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 himself tripped up by apocalyptic religious cults, Catholic guilt and the call of pornography and must use his love to fight his way out of darkness. Description courtesy of The Cinefamily, LA (Japan, 2009, 237 min., color, Blu-ray)

"Exhibiting astonishing dexterity, Mr. Sono shapes all this trauma into a narrative that's completely coherent and surprisingly touching, never more so than in Yu's struggle toward sexual maturity. " -Jeannette Catsoulis, NEW YORK TIMES

"As the old cliche goes, you will not have another moviegoing experience quite like this one all year." -David Lewis, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

" Would the film be easier to take in a more condensed form? Of course it would, but then it wouldn't be the singularly overwhelming oddity that it is." -Mark Olsen, LOS ANGELES TIMES