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Also Known As: - |
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| Year of first release: 2008 | |
| Director: Sono Sion (Exte - Hair Extensions, Cold Fish, Guilty of Romance) | |
| Actors: Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima (Death Note), Sakura Andô, Makiko Watanabe (Zebraman), Atsurô Watabe | |
| Country: J | |
| Genre: Comedy, Drama | |
| Conditions of visioning: 05-06.02.2013, DVD, Home cinema | |
| Synopsis: Yu (Nishijima), 17-years old, is living alone with his father (Watabe), a Catholic priest. Both their lives will change with the arival of Kaori (Watanabe), in particular pushing the young boy to master the fine Japanese art of Tosatsu, or upskirt photography... | |
| Review: Some friends including my co-blogger have seen this movie during a sunny afternoon at the Udine Far East Film Festival back in 2009. I didn't want to go see a 4-hour Japanese movie but rather enjoyed the Italian spring sun. Since then, they didn't stop telling me how good the film was and not feeling its four hours. I bought the DVD some time ago and finally watched it. Now I understand what they meant. The film is indeed a great experience to watch and is not plagued by slow rythm, repetitions and bad acting like are often the Japanese productions. Instead you can't stop watching the movie as you want to know what will happen next to this lost young boy as he goes through more and more bizarre situations without loosing his cool and forgetting his objective to find Love. To give you a feeling of the spirit of the movie, in the boy's head finding Love means finding his Maria (referring to a statue of the Virgin Mary his mother gave him) and is equivalent to photographing panties that will give him his first hard-on! Not feeling the length of the movie is helped by the use in the soundtrack of repetitive music like Ravel's Bolero, Beethoven's 7th Symphony or another original rythmic song. I found very funny that his hobby of upskirt photograpy is treated like if it was any other serious one (sports, litterature...). The boy puts all his heart to it and is helped by a master that applies Kung-Fu techniques to Tosatsu. The humour there is close to the one in the City Hunter manga (Nicky Larson in French) and I guess many others that I don't know. The particularly brillant filmmaking in the first two hours slows down afterweard as more dramatic themes are tackled, but the overall movie is well wrapped. Sono Sion is definitely a director I want to see more from, starting with the two other movies in his "Hate" trilogy: Cold Fish and Guilty of Romance. |
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Rating: 7 /10
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More than entertainment, an Art.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Love Exposure (2008)
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This is one of my favorite Japanese movie for several reasons. First, this one has the crazyness so typical in Japanese movies. The boy making panties photography really seriously, like a job! Then, the development of the story is greatly enhanced by the music, by the increasing sin/saint ambivalence of the main character and by the countdown of the first two hours. The second part is indeed more dramatic and requires more patience, as the rythm slows down. Nevertheless, the intrigue built by and around of the three characters is moving. This second part is between a melodrama à la Lars von Trier and a Thriller.
ReplyDeleteEven if the quality of the light is not so high, the image angles are well done. Therefore, it deserves in my ranking 8/10.