vashdaman said:
Everything in it was completely implausible and ridiculous, and the film was far too up its own back side most of the time.
Okay firstly I'll just write a bit towards this point; implausible and ridiculous? Okay, the plausibility of this film I could question yes; but this is a psychological thriller essentially- I don't think there are many that are truly plausible, and I don't think this one is as bad as you claim either. We should also remember that this film is based on a book; so this is very much Tetsuya Nakashima's vision on the book.
vashdaman said:
The central idea is pretty stupid I mean come on, a middle aged teacher crafting a complex and intricate revenge plot against two 13 year old boys is really quite pathetic and not much of an achievement. The middle aged teacher herself is also a complete idiot and hypocrit as well. The main things I actually remember from the film are a lot of phychotic laughter, screaming and grundgy music. Oh and there's the completely rubbish dialouge, its seriously bad, the kind of the stuff you'd expect from a half baked run of the mill anime. The behaviour and motivations of the boys are just so unbelievable, no 13 year olds actually act like that.
Okay, firstly i'll just reiterate what I said in the last the paragraph; story-wise this is based on a book, so if you were about to throw some criticism Tetsuya's way I'm gonna defend him here! (I'll be honest- I'm a big fan of his, and I've loved the 3 pieces I've seen by him).
I think you may have misinterpreted things a little wrong if that's how you feel about the film – the teacher didn't
plan everything at all. This is just my interpretation of her motivation but, after the death of her daughter (and the tragic illness her husband had) she felt no more real reason to live; I don't think this is over-the-top of implausible- I'd say it would be normal for someone in her position. She wanted to teach the kids a lesson about life, and as she refers to many times in the film, she has little hope of the class she taught ever 'getting better' or learning, and thus, she lies about poisoning the milk. Sure, she could have murdered them both, but in her mind, they deserved “worse than death”, and to feel the suffering that she has had to.
From there on, the film is fascinating. It splits into three simultaneous points of view; the teachers, Student A and Student B's. The focus shifts to the students, and I feel at this point the film turns into something incredible. So, we see Student B; a loner kid essentially. He had no friends, and had been desperate for friends. We see his side of the story, and find out (contrary to prior belief) that he had infact killed the daughter, not Student A! I found this to be a great minor twist of events, that went on to be crucial in the film. But the truly great part? His reaction to what had happened. He never gets his blood tested; and hence thinks that he has AIDs, and the OCD he develops from here is somewhat expected, but with a crucial twist – he refuses to clean himself, despite the fact he cleans everything around him to the point of being spotless! And the motivation for it? His horrid stench and uncleanliness is just proof to him that he is still alive. Not only is this a beautiful twist on the traditional 'develop an OCD from doing bad stuff' trope (for lack of better word), but serves to add to the dark humour that's underlying throughout the film (I'm talking about his appearance, and actions here; I recall him cleaning a tea-cup quite thoroughly at one point).
Then we see the much darker Student A part, in which we find out that his whole motivation behind this is to get his mother to notice him. Now, the plausibility of him feeling like this is high, but I will confess that his back-story is most implausible; genius mother marrying an idiot and teaching him physics while he's a baby is definitely... different. But if we accept that back-story, then we have another interesting character developing here. Student A reminds me very much of the darker side of Yagami Light (Death Note) and Lelouche (Code Geass) actually – and this isn't a bad thing. Student A is definitely a wild card in this film- you will love or hate him, and I think I loved him in a hateful way. I really didn't
like anything he did, but I really did love his motivations for his actions, and how that effectively made his void of all emotion not directly relating to his mother.
At this point we get a crucial 3rd character enter play; the girl that's made to kiss him, Student C. At this point the teachers bluff is revealed, as we discover he infact did not have AIDs. I liked the fact the love-story here was largely skipped, and a few scenes later we see that Student A and Student C are clearly now 'in a relationship'. We now get Student C's side of things and some history to do with her being/associating with (I honestly can't remember right now) the girl that had made the paper; but when she mentions this to psycho-boy Student A alarm bells ring. This was such a tense point in the film; I really can't see how you didn't enjoy it! Instantly in my mind I was questioning the two things that could happen to Student A; his character takes a turn, feels in love and forgives her feelings, or just simply, he'll kill her. Anyway, the film then skips back to the teacher (iirc) and this is where I think you may have got the confusion;
Student C's story blends into the teachers by them meeting in a cafe. They're casually talking, and teacher reveals that she's been encouraging the new teacher to (unintentionally) make Student B's life torturous, but Student C makes a crucial mistake; she tells the teacher of Student A's mother obsession. The teacher
only then starts to check his website, and put a new plan together relating to his mother; why? Simply because she didn't feel he had “learnt his lesson” from her original plan. I don't think this is irrational or implausible.
Anyway, we go back to Student A and C and we see Student C's murder. It was when it finally happened; but again we see some wonderful development of Student A's mother-obsession as he didn't actually kill her until she mocked his obsession. Again, I felt this was one of the strongest scenes in the film.
I'm willing to pause here and say yes; Student A's actions and scenario at this point are quite implausible – he seemed to be living on his own which bugged me, but it's so minor in the film it didn't detract from a thing. And yeah; this murder was definitely more hot blooded than was implied – I did feel they may have hinted at him murdering her to get his mothers attention, but it was never
really mentioned, so I think I was just assuming that may have come around.
My memory is weaker at this point, but iirc we skip over to Student B and him murdering his mother (after she attempts to murder him). Both were mentally ill at this point, and the mother really loses it after the genius hidden message from the students from his class (Killer, Die). Student B's story wraps up here with the Police taking him away.
The final act of the film is basically Student A and the teacher, in a sort of battle of wits in a sense. The teacher ruins Student A's plan, and 'punishes' him for not learning the lesson she tried to teach him about life. She realized he was going to try and kill as many as he could with that bomb, and she instead plants it in his mothers research lab, and tragically he kills her. I didn't feel the dialogue had been notably weak at any point here; and I didn't feel it was either here at the end. The teachers chilling reference to Student A's earlier comments to her was a touch of genius, and the film had a fitting end.
So in all, while I think the teachers actions may have been hypocritical at points; it was her descent into madness that motivated it. If this had been a series, we would have had at least 1-2 episodes on her losing will to live, and desire for revenge; instead they are just portrayed through the small gestures she makes through the film, and the way she becomes increasingly emotionless throughout (So I suppose, lack of gestures toward the end compared to the beginning!)
So I suppose in all, we have just had different feelings throughout the film. I really don't feel the criticism you made was necessarily fair; I can see what you mean at times, but I feel you were being somewhat dramatic. The only character I can imagine that would have hindered your enjoyment of the film was, as I previously mentioned, Student A. But to give it a 3? You must really have hated him, lol.
(Sorry this post was so long; I did try to shorten it a bit at the end, but I got a little bit carried away lol. I do plan to rewatch the film again at some point, and maybe I'll write a proper review for you then
)
Btw, I apologize for any grammar/spelling errors in there. I don't feel like proof reading it right now, lol. Hopefully it'll make sense though!
