Tetsuya Nakashima's Confessions opens with Yuko Moriguchi, a middle-school teacher, giving a lecture to her class. Yuko has recently been dealing with the death of her four-year-old daughter, but has recently returned to her classroom. Yuko is a good intentioned teacher who believes in her students but this isn't the typical Yuko, as she believes two of her students are responsible for her daughter's murder. Fully intent on getting revenge on these two teengers who she believes are responsible, Yuko begins an intricate game of psychological warfare, intent on destroying these two children the same way the did her. Confessions is one of the most brutal revenge films to come out of Japanese cinema, walking a fine line between sentimentality and brutal revenge. Told in a truly unique way, Confessions is a narrative the jumps from between various perspectives, spending time with Yuko, and both the students she believes are responsible. Nakashima injects confessions with a heavy dose of style, with heavy use of jump cuts, kinetic editing, and slow motion, that effectively create a unique, visceral experience. Visually the film is stunning, with Nakshima using ominious gray skies and dimly lit environments that emulate the dark nature of this film. A brutal experience, Confessions is a film full of great tension, that slowly reveals how people can only be pushed so far before they reach their breaking point. This is a film that captures how psychological warfare can be fare more destructive than actual violence, with Yuko's sorrow turning her into a sociopathic character.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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