TIFF 2010: CONFESSIONS Review

[With Confessions screening at the Toronto International Film Festival we now revisit Ben's previous review of the film.]

By the time you read this review for Tatsuya Nakashima's CONFESSIONS, it will have been re-phrased, re-focused, hell, re-written at least half a dozen times. And I'm sure Nakashima wouldn't have it any other way.


The centerpiece film at this year's NYAFF (and the opening film for their partner in crime, Japan Cuts) CONFESSIONS is the kind of motion picture that is tailor made for a fest like NYAFF. It is a bold piece of filmmaking from a young, bonafide talent, and gives us near instant access to what is, right now, the very pulse of Japanese cinema, as CONFESSIONS
- despite its dark subject matter - has remained a surprise number one at the Japanese box office three weeks in a row.

Takako Matsu, generally known for her enduring heroine or comedic supporting roles, gets to pull a total 360 here, playing Ms. Yuko Moriguchi, a cool, calculating seventh grade teacher who seeks revenge on the students who murdered her 4-year old daughter. Her confession to her class is laid out over the first 20 minutes of the picture, detailing in rapid fire the events leading up to, and around the murder. This is only to be the first part of her insidious plot against the students she refers to as 'A' and 'B'.

Anyone thinking the film was going to be a slow burn/back and forth/ultimate reveal all taking place within the classroom (something akin to a jury room meltdown) can breath easy. Moments after Yuko finishes her confession (pay close attention to the milk), the picture bursts wide open, jumping back and forth between perspectives and inner monologues of multiple students and parents, before focusing in on the hea(r)t of the matter, the needle-to-nose confrontation between Ms. Yuko (something of a puppet master) and 'Student A',  a venerable (vulnerable) boy genius named Shuya. The film is far more than it seemed at first glance. As grand and intense as some of its storytelling gestures are, I found CONFESSIONS to take a stumble in its narrative presentation. And while initially impressive in its cold, exacting cinematography, it may just be too technically immaculate for its own good.

The chapter/confessional/flashback/inner-imagining structure is one aspect that can impress on an editorial sense, but can also boggle the mind; asking the audience to juggle half a dozen threads, piecing them together as more revelations, suggestions, and twists come tumbling down. It isn't too much per se, and in the end is generally understandable, but it is fragmented. What propels this aspect is the aforementioned pristine and composed visuals and the rapid cutting. Tonally/stylistically the film behaves more like dozens of 60 second commerical spots or music videos strung together one after another with similar agendas and deja-vu characters cropping up every other segment, while snippets from Radiohead whisper across the soundtrack. Is this Nakashima's way of externalizing the inner landscape of the youth culture? Perhaps... it was just too overly styleized for my taste.

Performances from Matsu and the kids are all top notch to be sure, hell, they are busting their guts, laying it all on the line in exhausting scene after exhausting scene. Anguish rips the screen apart with an exacting claw, misery loves company, and here that's just about everyone. It is just that when the emotional amp is almost always turned up to 11, a hint of realism to undercut the sensationalism would have done the picture some good. The marriage of image and sound gives us the suggestive motion of sensation; that first initial punch to the gut, but it does not resonate much beyond.
 
In this way Nakashima may just be too damn good, and he may just as well know it. A certain self indulgence ferries the picture in the way beats and rhythms (or lack of) are established.  Narrative tricks are pulled to keep the audience guessing and piecing things together, but it was never something that felt cohesive in its fragmentation.
To make a point, a certain cut paired with a sound effect or music track may be used once, then again, and again, to become not poetic in rhythm, but redundant and misguided as if Nakashima got really giddy about it the first time it worked, and then lost sight in how and where he should actually use it.
 
Now don't take this the wrong way, CONFESSIONS is not a mess, nor just a shock piece.
 It is a film which handles the fragile, often difficult to articulate subject of youth violence (or rather just violence in general) very well, and then some. There are moments when Nakashima allows his characters to just breath, and speak and blossom on screen, moments that are undeniably gorgeous and frightening; to the point where deep intrinsic latitudes are charted and sewn into one's understanding of self and the culture at large. Though people here are vicious to the sharpest psychotic point, never, not once, is anyone mistreated on a social commentary level, never called out as evil or wrong... despite the film's extreme violence, it is, almost always, humane. Bottom line: hatred breeds hatred. Hatred births sorrow.
    
However these moments of resonance are not planted deep enough for anything to really stick beyond the visceral. The picture is just far too busy trying to be great via the technical to truly hit its mark. But doesn't CONFESSIONS sound like an interesting, intelligent, thought provoking picture? It absolutely is, and at the very least will be a great conversation starter. It will also no doubt be a highlight at this year's NYAFF for these very reasons. So despite what I view are the film's shortcomings, it is certainly something to see on the big screen.

One last thing... The closing line of the film is "Just Kidding". A friend and I were both curious as to how accurate this subtitle was to the original Japanese line of dialog. This line may hold the key to the film's ultimate motive, or it may not. So, in conclusion, ain't ambiguity grand?

CONFESSIONS has its international premiere at Japan Society in New York City, Thursday, July 1st, and plays again, Sunday, July 4th. Further info and tickets here!