Confessions
Directed by Tetsuya Nakashima
- drama
- thriller
- mystery
The story
Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.
What it’s like
Cold, high-contrast frames dominated by greys, whites and washed-out blues, with a clinical, almost sterile sheen to the classrooms and hallways of a Japanese junior high. Nakashima favours stylised slow motion, sudden jolts into hyper-saturated color, and gliding camera moves that feel more like a music video than a realist drama, all set to a bombastic, propulsive score and a driving pop soundtrack that clashes deliberately with the cruelty on screen. The vibe is chilly, feverish and unsettling, a bleak dread tipped into dark comedy, best suited to a late night alone when you want something intense and unrelenting rather than soothing. Pacing is fast and fragmented, cycling through multiple narrators whose accounts keep unsettling what came before, and the emotional arc follows a grieving teacher hardening into something cold and vengeful. Violence is frequent and often graphic, including child deaths, bullying, a stabbing and disturbing imagery of harm to children, and the tone is cruel rather than merely sad. It is made for viewers who enjoy stylish psychological thrillers and can stomach relentless darkness, not for anyone wanting something gentle.
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