"Confessions" is about Ms. Moriguchi (Takako Matsu), a young school teacher who plots and executes an elaborate plot to exact revenge on two of her juvenile delinquent students who were responsible for the sad death of her four year old daughter.
This horror story happened in a seemingly "regular" school, where your own children are in right now. How are you to know if there are mentally-unstable schoolmates roaming around plotting the most evil of schemes for the most nebulous reasons? This is the main reason why this film is so unsettling and discomforting.
The film also makes a convincing case against the Juvenile Law of the Penal Code stating that those 14 years old and younger are not liable for their crimes and cannot be punished for them.
The film is highly stylized with liberal use of visual effects and computer imagery. It is also very graphically violent and shirked not from generously splattering blood in its depiction of the various deaths that occur in the film.
The performance of Ms. Takako Matsu in the lead role of Ms. Moriguchi is so quiet and restrained, which makes her seem even more sinister, even as you can completely see where she is coming from. The creepy portrayals of the two troubled boys by young actors Yukito Nishii and Kaoru Fujiwara are very vexing in their realism.
"Confessions" is a different kind of Japanese horror film especially since it has nothing supernatural going on in it. This is one film that is so difficult to watch because you get the feeling that this can happen in real life. It is a film that can make you lose faith in the future of humanity.
Yet, despite it being so dark, so disturbing, so demoralizing and so depraved, Director Tetsuya Nakashima tells the story in a riveting way that you will be mesmerized to follow it all the way to the bitter end.
This horror story happened in a seemingly "regular" school, where your own children are in right now. How are you to know if there are mentally-unstable schoolmates roaming around plotting the most evil of schemes for the most nebulous reasons? This is the main reason why this film is so unsettling and discomforting.
The film also makes a convincing case against the Juvenile Law of the Penal Code stating that those 14 years old and younger are not liable for their crimes and cannot be punished for them.
The film is highly stylized with liberal use of visual effects and computer imagery. It is also very graphically violent and shirked not from generously splattering blood in its depiction of the various deaths that occur in the film.
The performance of Ms. Takako Matsu in the lead role of Ms. Moriguchi is so quiet and restrained, which makes her seem even more sinister, even as you can completely see where she is coming from. The creepy portrayals of the two troubled boys by young actors Yukito Nishii and Kaoru Fujiwara are very vexing in their realism.
"Confessions" is a different kind of Japanese horror film especially since it has nothing supernatural going on in it. This is one film that is so difficult to watch because you get the feeling that this can happen in real life. It is a film that can make you lose faith in the future of humanity.
Yet, despite it being so dark, so disturbing, so demoralizing and so depraved, Director Tetsuya Nakashima tells the story in a riveting way that you will be mesmerized to follow it all the way to the bitter end.