Confessions by Tetsuya Nakashima (2010)

This was a movie recommended by a friend and a film that I've been wanting to watch but not been able to get around it.

This film from Japan was number 1 at the Japanese box office for 4 weeks.

Confessions lived up to my expectations. This is the first work I've seen from Tetsuya Nakashima and I will be looking forward to watching more of his films and probably including them in my 40 films list.

The plot was simply mind-blowing and by starting with a shocking revelation of students killing their teacher's daughter, building it up more & more to a final culmination of the climax at the very last 10 minutes of the film and playing with multiple flashback and 1st person narration, the film kept me on the edge of my seat.

It struck me as I was watching the film that a film can be cinematographically appealing and attractive yet have themes that appeal to a large group of audience.

Since I desire to be a director of photography or an editor, and this film stood out most in its stunning cinematography, this post would be a photo entry of a compilation of shots & sequences I loved in the film.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words so I have many here (:

I find the opening sequence of every film important & Confessions began strongly, showing shots of individual students who are to become a part of Moriguchi's plot to create a living hell for the two culprits drinking the milk which she later lied that she had injected HIV infected blood into.

I find the directors of photography Shoichi Ato and Atsushi Ozawa have a love for expansion of time and changing to a slower frame rate in order to emphasise certain parts to drive their point across. In the milk carton falling on the ground scene, we see that it is an important prop that will spiral the start of the revenge scheme.

You can also see that the whole beginning where Ms Moriguchi narrates the story of her daughter's death and how Student A & B killed her, the colour palate is bluish and this is typical of most thrillers/ horror shows.

The above is another stunning slow motion sequence of rain drops hitting the ground.

You see that with each scene sometimes the colour tone changes drastically when the plot is revealing certain things to the audience slowly as Moriguchi's voice narrates the happenings.

The scene which spirals the whole movie's plot is the one above, in which Moriguchi's daughter is being thrown into the pool.

The whole sequence is established mostly in close up's and wide shots except the frontal view of Naoki when he is about to throw the girl into the pool, showing the audience his expression and leaving it free to interpretation.

It is only revealed later that we learn that Naoki knew the girl was alive and he knew throwing her into the pool would drown her. Yet he went ahead to prove his worth to a newfound friend who turned out to befriend him to makse use of him.

Once again the scene is dark and creates a foreboding feel representative of the heinous crime the 2 boys are committing.

The parallel cutting between the carefree children playing in the puddles and Moriguchi watering the bright red roses is linked well with the common theme of the droplets falling on something. It also juxtaposes Moriguchi's freedom with the children's nonchalant and frivolous attitude as she relinquishes her teaching duties and yet we can feel her sadness and grief.

I found the unexpected element of romance in the film between two very dark and incomplete children very intriguing. One has a mother complex, yearning to gain his mother's love and the other yearns to be a killer yet has no courage to really achieve anything but collect hydrochloric acid.

The scenes with the both of them seem blissful and bursting with happiness, the colours also start to get brighter on the spectrum. Yet when we hear Shuya's confession, we know that he was just biding his time with her, never truly finding the relationship meaningful.

This is my favourite scene near the end of which Shuya discovers that his mother, whom he loves and has killed in order to impress, has been killed by his own doings.

Here we see a time reversal initiated by his imagination in which he sees the clock he built that goes backwards. The whole sequence is clearly built on special effects but even so, the mood it creates effectively communicates Shuya's the living hell Moriguchi has created in revenge.

The ending is chilling as we see a final confrontation and Shuya being driven to his wits end and the film ends with Moriguchi alluding to what he said earlier when he was being confronted as to whether he had killed her daughter that he was just kidding.

Much as the plot development is unorthodox with the villain being the teacher and being unjust herself even as she takes revenge, the movie was a great watch because not only was it gripping and interesting, it was shot really beautifully. The different colours work to evoke different mood and the mise-en-scene was always able to establish context and give meaning in every frame.

References:

http://www.isugoi.com/confessions-review/

http://www.anime3000.com/articles/live-action/592-review-kokuhaku-confessions.html

http://www.yesasia.com/global/yumcha/kokuhaku-confessions-dvd-complete-edition-japan-version/1023608375-0-0-0-en/professional-review.html

http://hamsapsukebe.blogspot.com/2011/01/jmovie-review-confessionskokuhaku.html