General Movies Thread

[Spinach]

Everyone should watch Confessions by Tetsuya Nakashima.

[I3uster]

Just done watching Confessions.

Looks great, really suspenseful plot and amazing characters and you should really watch it.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Isn't that like The Dark Side version of Koe no Katachi? Like,

Spoiler:

bullying is bad, but it's more complicated than that, but now everybody's dead or fucked?

[Spinach]

Like,

Spoiler:

bullying is bad, but it's more complicated than that, but now everybody's dead or fucked?

Spoiler:

Well, not quite.

[I3uster]

Isn't that like The Dark Side version of Koe no Katachi? Like,

Spoiler:

bullying is bad, but it's more complicated than that, but now everybody's dead or fucked?

Spoiler:

bullying only happens to bad people in this

which isnt saying much as theres no really good person in this

[Spinach]

I think maybe one message I can get from this movie is that

Spoiler:

violence is bad and everyone is in the wrong.

[I3uster]

But yeah it's legit amazing watch it. And World of Kanako.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Spoiler:

The point being that Koe no Katachi has a similar thing going with how people bully and manipulate and exact revenge and also have it paint both sides of it ambiguously--just, nowhere near as dark, at least, that's what I know of the novel, dunno if the movie is a 1=1 adaptation.

It's just the first thing that springs to mind when I think of the weird issues they have with that in Japan and exploring it through media. Only other thing would be the teacher in Battle Royale, but that's a far more minor part to the story.

[I3uster]

Spoiler:

Idk if the comparison works. Bullying is not even a major part of it, and it honestly damns pretty much every character in here. The focus is not so much about that kind of interpersonal eye-level dynamics you have in a bullying situation but more about all kinds of imbalanced, parental/mentor type relationships. Bullying is more like a natural force in here everybody tries to play to their advantages. A bully isn't ever really characterized at all, or even named. It's just the mob.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Spoiler:

In Japan, there's an underlying factor regarding the HIV thing in that the teacher's daughter is implied at first to be victimized because of the ostracism of her father's condition. It's why, even if the whole infect-the-guilty-with-HIV may be highly hit-or-miss, the very idea of it is meant to be poetic-justice like.

[Spinach]

Spoiler:

the teacher's daughter is implied at first to be victimized because of the ostracism of her father's condition.

Spoiler:

Yeah not implied in the movie.

[I3uster]

Spoiler:

Poetic justice for what? She wanted them to die through bullying (something she says straight up) but it's not like that's the reason her kid died.

Every bad thing in this pretty much can be traced back to the failures of people that should have provided guidance but did not (at first) and then swings around for a double down on "these kids still are at a level where they know full well what the fuck they are doing." Think that's why they set it at middle school right before the juvenile penal code wouldn't protect them anymore. The movie doesn't have a whole lot to say about it other than the fact that it exists (okay maybe unfair but it's certainly in no way a focus)

[Five_X]

Spoiler:

[Ah, nah, there's nothing in this, I'm just fucking with you. Maybe I'll watch this movie when I've got some time.]

[Spinach]

Lmao fuck you

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Spoiler:

It wouldn't be spelled out. The long and winding spiel she gives at the beginning of the story--I dunno if its the same in the movie--but it really spells out ostracism and bullying and victimization of people from that. It's a very Japanese way of telling a story, of taking a bunch of very tangentical ideas that seem out of left field and then fitting them into place at the end, where you realize that this random story she had earlier about someone being set up because someone else simply didn't like them is related. The HIV thing is meant to instantly make the reader cringe because of how they view disease like that, and how this daughter of an HIV positive man couldn't possibly be dead because of some social strata related to it.

[I3uster]

There's been some adaption changes going on here otherwise I can't explain this.

Spoiler:

She's like 4. There's no bullying involved with the daughter at all. All bullying in the end happens to the 2 kids that got "infected" and the edgelord girlfriend. The ostracization is mentioned as reason for the marriage not happening but it's more of a setup for her living her single mom life than it is to make some kind of point about the bullying itself. Would also kind of hamstring the whole thing as an attack on society and thus undercut how the movie very much makes a point of individual responsibility over societies excuses for the same.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Spoiler:

No, again, I'm not talking about overt things. I know the girl's death has nothing to do with bullying. But part of that is in the reveal. Before you're told why she's killed, one of the knee-jerk reactions the initial framing device is going to do is make the reader think the death had to do with the HIV ostracism. It's among some of the meta function of the story, the fact that your own initial reaction is to judge a certain way, then have it be questioned as you see from the perspective of someone else and realize things aren't as clean cut as you would like them to be.

[I3uster]

Spoiler:

Yeah you wouldn't draw that conclusion from the way the movie frames those scenes with the visible lack of respect her students have from her in general and the fact that the reveal itself is a shock. I guess it's just done differently.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Guess it makes me a little curious to see the movie and see if/where things are different. And I do like the director. Kamikaze Girls is like the most popular movie in my university's Japanese program.

[I3uster]

I've seen 2 of his movies so far and they were both legitimately amazing. This guy's a genius.