Shion Sono, from Japan, is one such filmmaker. Thanks to an all-region DVD player (the film is available on Region 2; hopefully it gets a proper release here), I accessed his brilliant four-hour upskirt photography epic "Love Exposure." Sono packs so much meaty subject matter into the film -- love, lust, greed, family, loss, regret, fate, religion -- and breaks it up in chapters as it introduces the key players. If that run time worries you, fear not, there's not an ounce of fat in the film; seriously, it would be worse if it lost anything.
"Love Exposure" is the cure for anyone bored with the empty, over-the-top gore-fests like "Versus," "Tokyo Gore Police" and "Machine Girl" that have gained some level of cult status, but offer little else of interest besides repetitive limb chopping, arterial sprays and a pseudo-transgressive bent.
The film is daring in its style and storytelling. Sono is uninterested in anything resembling mainstream, but that's not to say the film isn't entertaining because it's smart, thrilling, funny as hell; the kind of thing that, if you need a cinematic shot in the arm, will work as the antidote to "normal movies." 'Exposure' is stylish and violent, but will not wear your patience because Sono's such a visceral, uncompromising filmmaker (apparently he wanted to release the film in a six-hour cut, was then forced to cut it down to two, and eventually compromised back to four after that cut was deemed an incomprehensible mess). As a storyteller, Sono seems interested in characters on the fringe, but he really loves them, or at least empathizes with them all. "Love Exposure" is ultimately about the consequences of our actions, among many other things; it firmly asserts there's a reason for people being the way they are, and we should take the time to understand those reasons, even if you find them weird. That's a philosophy I can get behind.
What Sono does so well, at least in "Cold Fish" and "Love Exposure," is show the reasons behind everything the characters do. He is incapable of making a stock character; even if they seem one-note (like both of the wife characters) they're revealed eventually to be as complex as any living, breathing human being. When Shamoto's life begins spiraling out of his control as he gets sucked further along in to Murata's brutal wake, the film becomes horrific, but even more comedic.
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