March 25th. It’s the end of the school year for Class B and the teacher would like to say something. She announces to cheers and claps that she will not be coming back next year. She feels her students are no longer trust-worthy because of an incident between an angry teen and one of the teachers. She then begins to explain her life choices and tells her life story to a less-than-interested juvenile crowd. Then she reveals something truly shocking to her students and …… silence. Accusations are made and fingers are pointed. Someone is responsible and to blame for a terrible crime, but who? Only the culprit(s) and the teacher know. There is now one last thing teacher Yuko Moriguchi must confess before she leaves…
Wow. This Japanese actress made me lose track of what I was doing: reviewing her work. She’s (in my opinion) very good. Takako Matsu’s character, Yuko Moriguchi, is something out of the ordinary. She seems so frail and delicate. Almost too nice for a teacher, if you know what I mean. I always wanted to know what she was going to say next and I have to admit (or I must confess, pun intended): I felt a great deal of empathy for her. On the other side, I wanted to squeeze these kids’ heads off because they also play their parts to perfection. Their job was to represent everything you loved and hated about high school. It might sound like a big cast when you think of an entire class of students plus the teacher but overall, this is mostly about a handful of characters. Two students obviously stand out because of their ”creepiness” levels: students A and B, played by 15 year old Yukito Nishii and 14 year old Kaoru Fujiwara.
Director Tetsuya Nakashima had me mesmerized from the get-go. He’s very fluid with his camera, I’d say. I found that he can capture whatever he’s looking for very quickly. A great deal of emotion passes through his lens and I found myself not only hearing what his characters had to say but also listening. The use of emo-music throughout really helped cement the whole thing and a good helping of American music kept things interesting. The way ”Confessions” or ”Kokuhaku” is edited only makes this hidden gem all the more enjoyable to watch. Because of the editing, this thriller/character study never really loses pace, even when it switches gears it’s more the terrain that changes if we can make that analogy. Which is primordial for any good thriller. What makes this one a great thriller for me is the fact that I wish that I’d been there. OOooo that would have been so good…
Let me sum it up for you in a few lines. I really liked ”Confessions”, borderline loved it. No guns, no nudity, no car chases, no explosions, no zombies, no vampires. Thank God. A couple of kids that needed to be punished were or were not but the story doesn’t end there. Teen love, teen angst and a bunch of twisted ideas to keep you well entertained. Some of the best dialogue/script I’ve seen in a few months. A very solid cast. Recommendation: Yes. A big fat one.
Courtesy of AMP
