Bob Hovey’s review published on Letterboxd:
Absurdly comic, deadly serious, hyper-realistic and fantastical, staggeringly long and mesmerizing. Love Exposure is one of those films that seems too bizarre and unwatchable to bother with when someone describes it to you ... how could anyone anticipate a meaningful or coherent experience when told they'll be sitting through a four hour film on teen romance and kung fu, Catholicism and upskirt photography, cultism and uncontrollable erections, love and obsession, porn films and deprogramming, filial piety and ultra-violence, all inextricably and powerfully infused with Japanese culture and a frantic anime pace?
Somehow this film pulls it off. The bizarrely surreal and absurd situations are presented with over-the-top frenetic passion and energy and yet are built on profoundly serious and sincere core principles, a masterful blend of storytelling adeptly presented by a cast possessing such remarkable character depth and charismatic appeal that you can't help becoming completely invested.
Four hours is a long time to devote to a movie which, in all honesty, is about as strange as they come ... if you can imagine Alejandro Jorodrowski and Mel Brooks collaborating on a Japanese-language film, you might have some idea of what to expect here. It is overwhelming, heretical, perverse, hilarious, excessive, impassioned ... and yet is ultimately heartwarming, insightful and life-affirming.
Love Exposure gave me just about everything I look for in a film: It's funny and yet it has undeniably serious themes that are dealt with fearlessly and intelligently. Its characters are real and fully-formed (even though they're all nuts). It's well-crafted (low-budget look aside, the shooting and editing in this film are masterful). Most important of all, it urges me to reexamine broader aspects of the medium itself and what I should reasonably expect of a film, over and above entertainment. Highly recommended.
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