The reversal of polarities A teacher learns that a young man she taught twenty years ago has committed a murder. To find out the circumstances of this case, she goes to Hokkaido, where she taught twenty years ago. She meets former students and remembers the past. Twenty years ago, her husband, saving a girl from a cliff in the sea, died. At that time, everyone thought that the teacher left the island because of this loss. But the truth was different. Knowing that her husband was doomed by a terrible illness and would die in six months, she began dating another man and was discovered by her students. That's what prompted her to leave. But that's all in the past, now the main thing is to understand why her former student committed the murder. As it turns out, he killed the husband of the girl he was in love with. The victim was a very bad man, suffering from bouts of cruel jealousy. Therefore, there is no doubt that the sympathy of the audience will be on the side of the killer.
The film is built on an almost detective method, when the truth, initially hidden, is fed slowly and carefully dosed portions. At first, the viewer imagines the killer as a monster, as well as the teacher as an angel. But then it turns out that the teacher is not an angel, and the killer is not a monster. This reversal of polarities is intended to emphasize the elusiveness and diversity of life, in which change is the basis for moving forward. By the end of the viewing, I don’t want to condemn anyone – not the teacher, not the murderer, not the classmates who made him an outcast since childhood. The film is built in such a way that its ending, namely a gathering of former students and teachers for a farewell lesson, carries a cathartic meaning, partly Christian. By singing, everyone receives forgiveness, but it is not God who gives it, but the former disciples themselves.
The film expressed a typical feature of Japanese society, which is the reliance of the individual on the group. When the killer is already caught and the viewer sees this unfortunate man who grew up a stutter because of the fact that in childhood everyone bullied him, one involuntarily thinks that he is doomed to die in prison, where no one will ever know about him. But not in Japanese society. The teacher and her former students persuade the police to release the accused for a short time to school, exactly for one lesson. Like twenty years ago, grown-up students gather in front of the blackboard to give their favorite singing lesson and sing a song about canaries. This should encourage the killer, give him a sense of support and that no one has forgotten about him. This seemingly purely sentimental plot actually reveals the basis of life in Japanese society, when the support of the group is extremely important. The killer may have been lonely while hiding from the police on the island, but he is certainly not alone when he meets with his classmates, even though he has already been caught by the police. Apparently, the image of such a paradoxical way out of loneliness was the idea of the film.
7 out of 10