Confessions (2010)— A Japanese thriller to break ‘the rule of thirds’ of composition

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The film named Confessions (2010) is a Japanese thriller directed by Nakashima Tetsuya. It talks about a story based on ‘revenge’, and uses the ‘self-profiling form’ to reveal the real minds of several main characters. The message of this film concludes many distorted ideas and ideologies, such as ‘hatred that subverts human nature’ and ‘bullying’.

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One thing is worth being considered is, that the composition of pictures for this film is quite distinctive, since it breaks the traditional rules for cinematography, which is called ‘the rule of thirds’ or ‘the golden ratio’ (Ward, 2003). Most of scenes in this film centered the main character of the frame, and there are many actors in the film, in this way, the ‘confessor’ could be always highlighted to match the theme of this film. Moreover, this composition can not only make audiences visually long-term get involved in an extremely concentrated state, but also create a sense of visual inharmonicity to let audience always feel tension and oppressive.

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Another feature of composition in Confessions (2010) is, the composition of most of scenes are extremely neat and clean, since there are a large number of ‘settings in the form of square patterns’ are used in the construction within a frame. In this way, shot looks more lack of humanity and create a sense of tension. Since there is no concept of ‘square’ in rules of nature, this if man-made. Thus ‘square’ can transmit a feeling of mechanization and lack of human nature. Furthermore, the content of this film contains different distorted ideologies, and this square composition helps audiences to concentrate on complex structure of the whole story rather than receiving various visual messages. After that, ‘extreme neat composition’ also contrasts sharply with the ‘distorted minds’. Therefore, this composition is also helpful for storytelling. 

References: 

Confessions (2010) Directed by Nakashima Tetsuya [Film], Japan: Toho Company.

Ward, P. (2003) Picture Composition for Film and Television. Oxford: Focal Press.