A grieving mother turns into a cold-blooded avenger to pay back the people responsible for her daughter's death. What happens next is all-out psychological warfare waged against her students in an attempt to force them into confessing what she knows in her heart to be true: they are guilty and must be punished.
Impressively directed and beautifully shot, this is a superbly written thriller with strong performances and a terrific soundtrack, though the relentless barrage of twists and turns is ultimately both confusing and overwhelming.
The incredible first act boasts more horror, surprise and intrigue than most fully-formed features, and though the subsequent hour never feels as concise or gathered, this is a potent, almost unbearably visceral slice of confronting cinema.
"Confessions" was a bona fide cultural phenomenon that sent shockwaves through Japan's collective conscience before the tragic earthquakes and tsunami drove people further into soul-searching.
I have to say that, despite its effective opening premise and some interestingly spacey mood-alterations and tonal shifts, I found it overcooked and overwrought, and sometimes quite implausible...
'Confessions' may be too grimly cynical to convince fully, but its combination of visual excess, dark wit, random violence, psychological insight and raw emotional intensity is intoxicating.
