Critics reviews

At the sessions I attended the crowd was predominantly young, FICValdivia being a university festival, but nevertheless, more so than at any other section. It's a testimony to just how much allure Siono's pop-art aesthetic holds for the young viewers. And rightfully so. Love Exposure is perverse in the most delicious sense . . . Sono manages to channel the romantic idea of love and devotion, while also taking stabs at mass culture, at religious devotion and piety of any kind.

An epic, four-hour romantic comedy about terrible fathers, upskirt photography, Catholicism, and the meaning of love. Where Sono's Bicycle Sighs could be categorized as a fairly typical minimalist art film, and his Suicide Club firmly entrenched itself in the millennial wave of Japanese horror, Love Exposure is much less easy to peg—a wholly original pop construct springing forth from its auteur's cracked heart.

Sono is probably the most exciting filmmaker working today, simply because he manages to maintain a high level of quality in projects that seem, superficially, so different from each other. But the breadth of his talent truly shows in the 237-minute epic masterpiece Love Exposure, which I think is also the best film of the last 10 years.

Looseness of this kind, of course, often results in meandering, and over four hours a lack of aim (and concision) may drag. But Love Exposure, for all its sheer girth, is rarely languid, marching ever-ahead with the fervor and frenzy of a film a fraction of its size.