Confessions (2010 film)

Confessions (Japanese: 告白, Kokuhaku) is a 2010 Japanese psychological thriller film written and directed by Tetsuya Nakashima. An adaptation of Kanae Minato's 2008 novel of the same name, the film stars Takako Matsu as a high school teacher who seeks revenge after her infant daughter is found dead at the school under mysterious circumstances.

The film was a critical and commercial success, receiving widespread acclaim with particular praise for its direction, screenplay, performances, cinematography, and editing. It was awarded Best Picture at the 34th Japan Academy Prize and 53rd Blue Ribbon Awards, and was shortlisted at the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It appeared on many lists of the year's 10 best films.

Junior high school teacher Yuko Moriguchi calmly announces to her undisciplined and disrespectful students that she will resign before spring break. She explains that, because the HIV-positive father of her four-year-old daughter Manami was becoming more ill, she used to bring Manami to school with her. One day, Manami was found dead in the school's swimming pool. Yuko reveals that two students in her class, whom she dubs "Student A" and "Student B", murdered Manami.

Yuko figures out who kills Manami by finding a small bunny-themed purse among Manami's belongings which did not belong there, leading her to question her student Naoki Shimomura (Student B). A flashback shows Yuko in a shop, telling Manami she cannot get the purse as she has just bought a bunny-themed jacket, when Shuya (Student A) sees her and loudly questions why Manami cannot have the purse. Shuya Watanabe (Student A) later admits to killing Manami and rushes to jump out of the window, pretending that he is about to kill himself out of regret. He then mocks Yuko's compassionate reaction by saying "just kidding".

Yuko tells her students that she will not name the students who killed Manami for the same reason that she did not tell the police: the students are minors and thus unable to be arrested due to the Juvenile Law of 1947, a fact which also allows Shuya to continue taunting her about the murder. However, she tells the story of how she figured out who committed the murder, purposely making it extremely easy for the other students to deduct that she is referring to Shuya and Naoki. As a teacher, she believes she must teach the boys a lesson by making them atone for their actions, revealing that she injected their milk cartons with the HIV-positive blood of Manami's father. The other students react with panic and immediately move away from the boys. The rest of the film switches between the aftermath of Yuko's confession and the events before the confession via first-person narratives from Yuko, Shuya, Naoki, and the boys' classmate Mizuki Kitahara.

Naoki becomes a shut-in because he believes he has contracted AIDS from the contaminated milk. His mother realizes he was involved in Manami's death and plans to commit murder-suicide to free them both from guilt, but he kills her in the ensuing struggle and the police arrest him; it is later revealed that he did not throw Manami's corpse into the pool to make it look accidental as previously claimed, but knew she was simply unconscious and threw her in anyway. Meanwhile, Shuya explains that his mother abused him before abandoning the family to pursue a career in science, and her abandonment made him obsessed with scientific accomplishments and experiments ranging from creating small inventions to documenting his murder and dissection of various animals. His first public invention, an electric anti-mugger wallet, earned him a science fair award and made the local news but was kept out of the headlines as the media was distracted by a murder case in which a young girl poisoned her parents.

Shuya upgraded the anti-mugger wallet, decided to try it out on someone, and roped in Naoki to help. They decided to test the device, which had since been installed in the bunny-themed purse, on Manami. However, it rendered her unconscious by the pool. Shuya mistook this as having killed Manami and walked away, proud of his achievement. Naoki then threw Manami into the pool, where she drowned, making him the real killer; Yuko comments on the irony of the situation, as Shuya failed to kill someone despite wanting to and Naoki killed someone despite claiming that he did not want to. Mizuki tells Shuya that she believes Yuko lied about the contaminated milk, as it was an implausible method of HIV transmission. She confesses to him that she identifies with the girl in the poisoning case and the two become romantically involved, but he kills her and stores pieces of her body in his fridge after a confrontation over the abandonment complex caused by his mother.

Shuya receives an email from his mother, who says she wants to see him. He travels to the university where she works, expecting to reunite with her, only to discover that she has remarried and is away on her honeymoon. Believing she has forgotten him, he plants a bomb in his school during graduation and links it to his phone, aiming to kill himself and everyone else in the school during his speech. To his surprise, the bomb does not go off when he hits the button on his phone. He then receives a call from Yuko, who reveals that she faked the email from his mother and figured out his plan by watching the video manifesto he uploaded to his website. She subsequently relocated the bomb to the office of his mother, who just returned from her honeymoon. Yuko explains that this is her ultimate revenge: causing Shuya to kill his own mother. Shuya has a breakdown in the school assembly hall as Yuko arrives, telling him that his path to redemption can begin now that she has finally had her revenge, but she then laughs and says "just kidding".

• Takako Matsu as Yuko Moriguchi
• Masaki Okada as Yoshiteru Terada (Werther)
• Yoshino Kimura as Yuko Shimomura
• Yukito Nishii as Shuya Watanabe
• Kaoru Fujiwara as Naoki Shimomura
• Ai Hashimoto as Mizuki Kitahara
• Mana Ashida as Manami Moriguchi

Soon after the film had started showing in 266 cinemas, it had already grossed ¥269,835,200 with 194,893 audiences, breaking the record previously held by I Give My First Love to You. It kept grossing and became the highest grossing film for four consecutive weeks in June. It grossed over ¥3.5 billion in the 8th screening week. The gross revenue finally reached a total of ¥3.85 billion in Japan.^[1] It is ranked as the 7th highest-grossing Japanese film in 2010.^[2] The film also grossed $2,625,175 overseas in other Asian countries, bringing the worldwide total to $45,203,103.^[3]

Confessions received a widespread positive response globally, with critics praising a variety of factors including the faithfulness of the adaptation from the book,^[4] the writing and direction, and the performances (particularly by Matsu and the child actors).^[5] The film has an approval rating of 81% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews, and an average rating of 6.6/10.^[6] Seongyong Cho of RogerEbert.com called it a "gut-chilling Japanese thriller".^[7]

One of the few negative reviews came from British critic Mark Kermode, who said that the film's stylistic choices made it "virtually impenetrable on an emotional level".^[8]

In 2022, American filmmaker Michael Mann listed the film in his top 10 favorites for the Sight and Sound poll.^[9]

The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards.^[10] In January 2011, it made the January shortlist and advanced to the next round of voting.^[11] In Japan, it firstly won Best Film and Best Supporting Actress at the 53rd Blue Ribbon Awards, which is one of the most prestigious national cinema awards in Japan. Then, it won the awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editor at the 34th Japan Academy Prize.^[12][13] Also, it had six nominations in 5th Asian Film Awards, which is one of the films with most nominations (with Let the Bullets Fly).

In April, the film won Best Asian Film (similar to Best Foreign Language Film, though only Asian films which have been screened in Hong Kong are admitted to join) at the 30th Hong Kong Film Awards. At the 31st Hong Kong Film Awards, the category of Best Asian Film was replaced by a new category called Best Film of Mainland and Taiwan which means that only Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese films can remain to compete for such an award. Therefore, Confessions has become the last winner of Best Asian Film.

• Cinema of Japan
• List of submissions to the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Japanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• Sasebo slashing

• Confessions at IMDb