“Confessions” was a mystery film that produced in Japan. It was released in Hong Kong cinema at the October of 2010. Then, the DVD version released at the January of 2011. When this film was first released at Hong Kong cinema, it had aroused public support and became a hot topic in online forum discussion. Indeed, I read the novel before watching this film in DVD. After I watched the film version, I found that there were some points matched with my expectation. The icon, setting, characters, themes, narratives were expected to be a mystery film.
Firstly, about the iconography, in mystery films that always has weapon. People dressing and living in usual would make something that you did not expect that kind of characters would have such actions. Secondly, the setting about this film is around the school and home. The home and school would also as usual as yours in childhood. Such usual space would give the audience more imagine spaces when incident happened. Also, the light tone of this kind of film is always darker than other films to create a sense of hidden danger. Thirdly, about the characters, because this story is happened in school, so is mostly about teachers, students and families. This relation formulates an underlying relation among them to be more sensible and deeper than just have two groups of people.
The themes about this movie are about revenge and confession. Mystery films always have many supportive riddles to form a main stream riddle. So, there are some clues in the film that help the audience to understand the riddle and solve it. In this film, the story is about a daughter which only aged less than 4 were dead in an incident. While everyone thought she was slipped and drowned in the school swimming pool, her mother that was the teacher confessed that actually she was being killed and the story begins. A little bit interesting is that this film was a bit unusual to traditional mystery film. Where the main character told the audience what is the ending of the main riddle at the very first scene. Then the story linked with different characters’ confessions to tell what their motivations are.
Firstly, about the iconography, in mystery films that always has weapon. People dressing and living in usual would make something that you did not expect that kind of characters would have such actions. Secondly, the setting about this film is around the school and home. The home and school would also as usual as yours in childhood. Such usual space would give the audience more imagine spaces when incident happened. Also, the light tone of this kind of film is always darker than other films to create a sense of hidden danger. Thirdly, about the characters, because this story is happened in school, so is mostly about teachers, students and families. This relation formulates an underlying relation among them to be more sensible and deeper than just have two groups of people.
The themes about this movie are about revenge and confession. Mystery films always have many supportive riddles to form a main stream riddle. So, there are some clues in the film that help the audience to understand the riddle and solve it. In this film, the story is about a daughter which only aged less than 4 were dead in an incident. While everyone thought she was slipped and drowned in the school swimming pool, her mother that was the teacher confessed that actually she was being killed and the story begins. A little bit interesting is that this film was a bit unusual to traditional mystery film. Where the main character told the audience what is the ending of the main riddle at the very first scene. Then the story linked with different characters’ confessions to tell what their motivations are.
From this image, we could see how mystery film mange thelight tone. The familar space truned into a killing site did
have a greater impact than a virtual space.
The narrative of this kind of film was that we expected someone has to be killed, if not, we cannot find the motivation of the convict and made no rationality. That is what a mystery film most important element and attraction.
So, because of the classification of this film was mystery, I think there are a lot similarities among these kinds of film genre as I have mentioned above. So, we are able to fit our tastes and expectation when we have to make a choice to what we like. "Confessions"still consider as a formal mystery film but it had an unusual story telling method to mark a success.
by Zack Wong, 10458805
This is one of my favorite films shown in recent years, and I must say that the author is extremely talented in writing this genre (you may read her recent book, “贖罪”, which is very well written).
ReplyDeleteYou have identified some common features of a mystery and suspense movie (e.g., icons, setting, characters, themes, narratives), which are quite comprehensive. In fact, many audiences appreciate the storytelling skills of both the scriptwriter and the director, as they can develop all the strength and passion of a mystery film with such a confined setting (i.e, a secondary school).
Though the violent scenes are eye-catching, yet many “calm moments” are full of tension too! They represent a rather unusual way of telling a mysterious/thrilling story. What do you think?