So wondering what the film was like, I decided to watch Confessions with her. After all, it was an Academy Award nominee, so it had to be at least a decent film.
Confessions tells the story of a teacher who seeks to avenge her daughter's death, by going after her killers. The two killers are her own students.
The storyline
Moriguchi Yuko (Matsu Takako) announced to her form class of 13 year-olds that she is resigning. She revealed that her daughter (Ashida Mana) had been killed by two students of the class-- Shiomura Naoki (Fujiwara Kaoru) and Murakawa Shinya (Amami Juri), even though the police concluded that her death was via accidental drowning. The rowdy class remained apathetic and rude until Yuko reveals that she had injected HIV-positive blood into the milk of Naoki and Shinya. Although none of them would be infected with HIV (you can't get HIV from drinking tainted milk! More people should study Biology, like me!). the class shrieked in horror as they back away from both Noaki and Shinya. Yuko reminded the class that "all life is precious" hypocritically and finally took her leave.
Confessions is unlike a typical revenge story, as it is told from five perspectives, thus involving flashbacks and flashforwards. Let's go through each of them.
Shiomura Naoki
Naoki suffered from inferoirty complex. He joined a sports school, but was not good at sports. He joined a cram school, but was not good in his studies. Everyone in class bullied him, and he longed for a friend. Everyone, except Shinya.
Sick of Yuko's attempts to help him, Naoki suggested that they should target Yuko's daughter to teach Yuko a lesson. On the day of the murder, Shinya rigged a purse to deliver an electric shock to render Yuko's daughter unconscious (but alive). Thinking that he had killed her, Shinya boasted that he finally did something note-worthy. He then confessed that he never liked Naoki anyway, and was just using him to lure a target. In other words, Naoki would never amount to anything, much less a killer.
As Shinya left the scene of crime, Naoki discovered that their victim was still alive. Remembering Shinya's words, he tossed the Yuko's daughter into a swimming pool, effectively drowning her to deny Naoki's claim to murder.
Upon thinking he was infected with HIV, Naoki dropped out of school, and refused to attend classes in the new term. He refused to let everyone and everything touch him, and scrubbed everything he touched, thinking that he had infected it (like Lady Macbeth).
New teacher Yoshiteru Terada (Okada Masami) naively attempts to reach to him with enocuragement and messages from the class (the class had made notes of encouragement for him, but contained cryptic messages to remind Naoki of his murder), but his attempts only drive him further to insanity. Kitahara Mitsuki (Hashimoto Ai), the class moniteress suggested to Terada that he was pursuing a lost cause, but this drive Terada (who does not knowthe whole story) to increase his efforts.
Mrs Naoki
Naoki's mother (Kimura Yoshino) is incapable to believing that her son's mediocrity is his fault. She blames society, Yuko, Terada, his classmates and herself (basically everyone except Naoki) for her son's condition. Continually absolving her son's innocence in the light of recent events, she finally hits a breaking point when Naoki confesses that he intentionally killed Yuko's daughter. Taking the blame of her son's action, Mrs Naoki wrote a letter of confession and stabbed her son in the chest. Naoki then demostrated what he was really good at-- killing, and stabbed his mother.
Kitahara Mitsuki
After the resignation of Yuko, the class began to taunt and bully Shinya, constantly reminding him that he was a killer. Only the class monitress Mituski refused to take part in such activities. Upon discovery of severe bullying, Terada reprimanded the class, and Mituski was immediately suspected as Terada's informant. So she shared the bullying with Shinya.
Such bullying made Mituski close to Shinya, and they become good friends. Believing her love for him would change him, Mituski confessed she admired Shinya's genius. To impress Shinya, she told the police the reason for Naoki's breakdown-- the frequent visits of Terada. This destroys the naive Terada's personality, confidence and ultimately his faith in the character of his students.
Murakawa Shinya
Shinya is a genius with a superiority complex. Despite winning a science fair, he craves fame, and was upset when news of a juvenile murdering her whole family made the front page. Abandoned by his mother (a professional physicist) when he was young, Shinya was hoping that his genius would allow his mother to finally accept him. He would show off his inventions in his blog (his source of confessions), but she did not reply.
He went to the extent of intenting to kill Yuko's daughter but failed. This denied him the chance of fame. He finally broke and decided to blow the whole school up. When ridiculed by Mituski for his craving for fame (as mummy issues), he beat her to death via a blunt object.
Despite planting the bomb at the school hall, it failed to detonate as he activated it. What happened?
Moriguchi Yuko
Yuko had planned everything all along. Refusing to over her evidence to the police (as they would have pressed light charges to minors), Yuko took revenge into her own hands.
She had played on Terada's enthusiasm, and advised him to keep visiting Naoki (counting on the nastiness of her ex-class to ruin Naoki further). As Mituski regularly met up with her, Yuko learnt about Shinya's family issues. She was the one who had moved the bomb, and confessed this act to Shinya over the phone, and that the bomb was placed at his mother's office. In other words, Shinya killed his mother.
Confronting Shinya (who was now in tears), Yuko told him that he had tasted his own medicine (death of a loved one), and now he had to work on a road of reformation and redemption. "Just kidding," she ended, rejecting his possiblity of redemption.
Discussion
Social responsiblitiy: Classic Liberialism and Conservativism
One of the ideas the film explores is the idea of responsibility. Who is responsible when a person commits a crime. Traditional Liberialism (sounds like an oxymoron) tends to place the blame on society, while Classic Conservativism places blame on the individual.
And to some extent, the film explores both cases. Naoki can be easily seen as a leaf in the ocean, being pushed an influenced by Shinya, his classmates and his mother. He bases his self-worth on his friends and parent, and he slips into depression upon Shinya's betrayal and the painful reminders by his classmates.
Shinya, on the other hand is a force of his own. Other than motivated by fame (his self-worth), he attempts to kill Yuko's daughter and the school, and actually kills Mituski and his mother himself. Despite his genius and strong personality, he fails to choose what is right. This is most poignant when Yuko rightly pointed out that Shinya could have chosen not to detonate the bomb. But he did.
Self-worth
The film places a lot on self-worth. It does not take a philosopher to underline the importantness of this question. For Naoki's mother, it is her son. Thus when realising her son was beyond redemption, she murders him. For Shinya, it was his mother's respect and the need for global recognition. Upon wanting those, he planned to murder a school to make headline news.
However as Christians, we have to remember that our self-worth is in God. After all, if we believe in God, then we are reasonable to believe in our own value. God made us his unique creations, possessing unimaginable, intrinsic worth. Furthermore, each child of God has a unique gifting from the Spirit, indispensable and irreplaceable (1 Cor 7:7).
In the film, we see how family, fame and love can lead to destructive circumstances. Although the three can be admirable things, they can be devestating once made the ultimate goal in life. As you can see, theology matters.
For more details on self-worth, read this.
Redemption
The film lastly suggests that some people are beyond redemption. Naoki's mum saw it in her son. Yuko saw it in Shinya. Even Mrs Naoki's and Mituski's attempts to redeem Naoki and Shinya respectively ended in failure and death. In fact Yuko concludes the movie by stating that redemption for Shinya is a joke.
However, in the Christian view, we have to remember that no one is beyond God's reach (John 3:16). It's not about what we did, but what has been done for us. It's not about where we been, but where our brokeness leads us to. And it's not about what we feel, but what He felt to forgive you. And that's what we preach a Gospel of Christ crucified, to redeem all mankind.
Review
I did like the movie, but found it unnecessarily brutal. I cringed at Mituski's death and dismemberment. I kind of thought that the movie missed out the views of Terada, the new and enuthsiastic teacher, to provide a optimistic framework to the pessimistic tone of the movie.
I give it a 68/100.
