The Confession (2016)

In a Taiwanese village, surrounded by a picturesque landscape, two teenage best friends, Yan Ming and Shao An, have known each other since they were children, play together and maintain a close friendship. Although they share very different personalities, they both complement each other. One weak and one strong, one calm and one active.
As Shai An tries to win the interest of Yu Xuan, a girl, Yan Ming discovers new feelings for his best friend. Meanwhile, both children will play typical adolescent games, activities that serve to uncover, or activate, a sensuality that springs from all the pores of young people.
All this happens in a violent, bleak and claustrophobic atmosphere, as Yan Ming is harassed by the other students, so he must be defended by his friend. These characteristics increase in their own homes, since they live their particular drama in their humble homes. With absent mothers in their respective homes, without the presence of other loved ones, Shao An lives with his violent father, while Yan Ming has his alcoholic and negligent father as his only family member.
Shao An and Yan Ming are experiencing an effervescence of their sensuality. The former is very comfortable with girls, while Yan Ming begins to realize his attraction to his friend and feels guilty for harboring a forbidden love within him.
Let's point out the sad scene of the two boys' arrival at school, with a happy Yan Ming attached to Shao An's back while he pedals his bicycle to school, which represents the catharsis in the face of the first's incipient and misunderstood homosexuality (see how the boy they are in love with chases the girl as soon as he sees him at the school entrance), and that anticipates the open crack, and the discomfort that Yan Ming begins to suffer with his friend.
Jealous of Yu Xuan, Yan Ming decides to play a prank on her to get her away from Shao An, which provokes the two's anger when they discover the author of the prank. Confessing his secret will cause the brotherhood to face an unprecedented challenge, in addition to increasing the ridicule of his companions about him.
The film portrays the pain of growing older, of not escaping the terrible gaze of those who will never understand your emotions, of the stupidity of others.

ISSUE
The 2016 Taiwanese romantic drama 'The Confession' (Native title: 男孩心事/Nan Hai Xin Shi) is about friendship, sensuality, discovering sexuality and how it affects them personally, and hidden passions.
It is a film that, in its scarce 25 minutes, shows the germ of homosexual attraction, the awakening of the sexuality of some boys who are defining their sexual orientation, who explore their body and their emotions, at the same time as a love triangle.
It is also about the agony that Yan Ming suffers from knowing that he is in love with his heterosexual friend, the shame that this forbidden love causes him, the pain of seeing how Shao An also falls in love with a girl in the classroom and the breakup of a friendship.
It is the pain of becoming an adult and leaving behind the joy of childhood; We will see Yan Minh, with his heart wounded by the blows of life, perhaps the first of many, looking at himself with pain through the reflection of the mirror in his room, while marking the sadness on his face with paint. His gaze also gets lost in the horizon, in the nature that surrounds his house, the school and the park where he once played with the friend who now, after hearing his confession, abruptly separates him from his life. When the secret is revealed and coldness conquers the heart of the loved one, game time is over and it is time to face the harsh adult reality.
SCENERY
Everything takes place in a humble town in Taiwan, which is surrounded by natural landscapes, which will serve as an escape route, games and walks for the protagonists.
Despite the suffocating atmosphere in which the characters operate, the director divides the short film well into two moments, which will show the moods of the protagonists, that of the joy of the innocence of youth, and that of sadness, discord and misfortune.
The young protagonists, new actors, play their roles quite correctly, giving verisimilitude to the restlessness typical of an adolescence that awakens to sexuality.
The narrative focuses more on the experiences of Yan Ming, who carries the weight of the anguish and the plot of the film, whose suffering and dismay are transferred with notable note from the script to the screen.
It is a visual film, where it is described more with images and silences than with the characters' dialogues. This circumstance forces the viewer to pay more attention to the viewing.
Despite its low budget, the rich photography helps the staging of the film, with beautiful framing and use of light, although it intentionally uses dark scenes, but not to recreate it, but to associate it to a certain extent point to the emotional state of its protagonists.
In short, it is not a film that will brighten your day, and the approach of inviting tolerance and not discriminating against homosexuals is too vague, and of course the adult characters do not help, as if between alcohol, violence and depression would have aged prematurely and would have bequeathed their own unease to new generations.

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