Confession

There’s nothing in the synopsis of Lee Do-yun’s debut film Confession to suggest that it might be anything remarkable. The film centers around three childhood friends who remain close in young adulthood, despite the different paths they have chosen. Hyun-tae (Ji Sung) is the most grounded of the three, a paramedic with a wife and child whose moral center never wavers. Min-soo (Lee Gwang-su) has made a mess of his life, and leans heavily on his friends for support. In-chul (Joo Ji-hoon), meanwhile, is the brashest personality of the three, an insurance salesman with a calculating mind, yet prone to taking risks.

So it’s no surprise that when Hyun-tae’s mother, who runs a small gambling operation, comes up with an illegal scheme to collect insurance money, she approaches In-chul rather than Min-soo or her own son. A well-timed case of arson, with evidence acted out in front of CCTV cameras, would allow her to collect the insurance money and retire, while also helping out her son’s best friends. Of course, that’s not the way things work out, and the bungled arson marks the start of a vicious downward spiral for the three unfortunate young men.

I think it’s fair to say that most critics had low hopes for this film before its premiere. These days, so many Korean genre movies employ the same templates and patterns that it’s hard to get excited when a new director presents a film with a familiar story. But Confession did make an impression. It’s a suspenseful, engaging, memorable work that is able to make even formulaic scenes and situations feel charged with life. Partly this is just a question of pure technical accomplishment. Director Lee Do-yun and his collaborators clearly understand how to use editing to create tension, and how to use lighting and the camera to create evocative settings that complement the emotions of the story. There is a craft in pulling the maximum amount of emotion out of each scene, and we see that in this film. For a debut work, Confession is quite impressively put together.

But apart from that, where the film really excels is in its portrayal of relationships. Director Lee succeeds in getting strong, nuanced performances out of the three young men who head the cast, and he is able to capture well the changing dynamics between the friends as a result of misunderstandings, guilt, or mistrust. It’s not so much the structure of the story as his skillful handing of details that make this possible. With minor gestures and seemingly offhand lines of dialogue, he expresses the depth and complexity of their friendship.

There’s a distressing irony to the film’s central tragedy as well. Greed, ambition, callousness all play a part, but in the end what throws their friendship into crisis is a completely unforeseen and unintended accident. Moreso than the risk of being caught by the police, or the potential consequences of the staged arson, it’s the unintentional but deep personal betrayal that the crime represents that makes this story so poignant. Confession did not break out at the box office, but it demonstrated the impressive talent of director Lee Do-yun. New directors face an uphill battle in the Korean film industry, mostly because they aren’t given the creative freedom to make highly individualistic films that express their unique vision or style. But I hope that for his second film, director Lee will be given freer reign to make a highly individual film, because I sense that his talent could take him far.