Love Exposure

Movies that Made Me: Love Exposure, A Perfect Film? When I think of what shapes my identity, a few things come to mind, mainly my art and sense of justice. However, an odd thing about me is that I have a strange kinship with religious zealots. For the longest time, I had no idea why. I’m not religious myself, I don’t come from a religious family and I don’t agree with most of their values. But whenever I see an Amish person, a nun or anyone else with their level of faith, I can’t help but see a bit of myself in them. I think I finally understand why. I, myself, am a zealot, but not in a church of god, but the church of Love. I’m a devout believer in the faith of love. I first watched love exposure for the sole reason that it was ranked #77 on the letterboxd top 250. 77 is my favorite number, so I thought “what the hell, sure” and spent a Friday night watching it. After only one hour I texted my friends a screencap of Yoko’s introduction, and said “Watching one of the best movies I’ve ever seen rn (so far)”. The film went on for another 3 hours and it refused to let go of my attention. I’ve now spent 8 hours of my life watching this film, and I could watch it 800 times and it would never get boring. The following Monday, I told everyone I knew about love exposure, how it was “the craziest film I had ever seen”, and “it’s about literally everything you could think of”. I’m almost certain that nobody I recommended it to actually went out and watched it, but I think the fact that I went out in the streets preaching the good word of Sion Sono says enough. What I’m trying to explain is that this was one of the few films that I truly fell in love with, in every sense of the word. I watch at least one movie every single day, and from mid July to mid November, I didn’t watch a single 5 star film. I started losing hope, that maybe, somehow, I had watched every film I would ever love. Maybe this was it. Or maybe, somehow even worse, I lost my love for film. Maybe I was the broken one, and I just couldn’t appreciate my favorite thing anymore. Love exposure not only proved me wrong, but grabbed that idea out of my head, sliced it up with a katana and let the over the top blood effects spew out of it. Now let’s talk about WHY I’m head over heels for Love Exposure. The short answer is: I’m a gay pervert who likes movies about religious guilt. The long answer is: When I was 15 I met a boy who I believed to be my true love. I spent every day talking to him. When I wasn’t talking to him, I was thinking about him. I was in love with him, and he was with me. This was my first exposure to love. True, romantic, pure love. From that moment onward, I knew I would spend the rest of my life chasing the high of love.  As I said before, I’m a zealot in the church of love, but what exactly does that mean. It means that no matter how hard I try, it is nearly impossible to see someone in a light that isn’t positive. I see the people that want me dead, and I can’t hate them. It feels like my brain is physically unable to hold hatred within it. Love is all I know. Love Exposure is the truest form of love I have ever seen, love buried deep down within hate. Yu and Yoko are my favorite deuteragonists in any film ever. I feel the deepest pity for Yu, watching him sink deeper into a world that he doesn’t belong in. I see his actions, I see the horrific acts he commits, and I want to hate him, but I remember the pure intentions they come from, and I can only feel bad for him. I see Yoko and all I can see is myself. I see a broken, downtrodden girl with too many issues to count and all I can do is want to give her a hug. Their journeys are some of the most beautiful stories I have ever seen in a film, especially Yu. I can’t understate this enough, I think Yu has one of the greatest arcs and falls in any film EVERRRR. Not because he goes from a bad to good person, but because through his entire fall from grace, you can’t help but remember where his heart is. But, unfortunately intentions and actions are not the same. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room here: is this film misogynistic by glorifying sex offenders. Short answer: yes and no. Long answer: OH MY GOD IT IS COMPLICATED. The actions done by Yu and his friends are taken to an extreme, yes, but you can’t help but acknowledge that what they’re doing IS a massive problem, especially in Japan. Yu is treated like the tragic hero in this story due to this, but I think we can all admit that good intentions and good actions are not the same thing. Yes, the film isn’t saying “go rape people!” but it’s also trying to make you sympathize and feel bad for the sex offenders. This is literally my only criticism of the entire movie. Other than this, which is debatable on whether or not it’s even misogynistic, the movie is perfect. To sum up what makes this film so incredible, love is the most powerful thing in the world. Love can push us to do extraordinary things, it can warp us completely and it can ruin us. Love is something that we will never fully understand, for how can you understand something with no possible end. I love you. Each time we say “I love you” to someone, you are changing their life, even if it’s in the smallest way. Love will always mean everything. When the world is ending, humanity is dying, society is collapsing, the only thing we will have is love. Tell someone you love them today. *“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies ,they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” -Corinthians 13*