On a surface, Hirokazu Kore-edaX Monster seems to be just about a boy who has a hard time in school, and his single mother does everything she can to keep their lives together. When her son is injured in an incident, she breaks into said school to demand punishment for the teacher she believes caused the injury. Kore-eda crafts a meticulous story full of hidden twists and turns that are revealed with time and patience. Author’s script Yuji Sakamoto, Monster this is the first film since 1995 that Kore-eda directed without writing a script.
The story starts with Saori (Sakura Ando) perspective. She is Minato’s single motherSoya Kurokawa). A hardworking, loving, and devoted mother, Saori is rightly disturbed when her son comes home from school with all the obvious signs of bullying. But the truth is harder than she thinks. When Saori demands answers from teacher Minato Hori (Eita Nagayama) the story quickly twists from there.
Hirokazu Kore-eda weaves the narrative with several main characters
Success Monster lies in the fact that over the course of the film, and as we see the story through Saori’s eyes, then Hori’s eyes, and finally through Minato’s eyes, the superficial story takes on surprising depth. If you pay attention, you may see some graffiti on the wall before it gets to the final act, but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying.
Sometimes there are threads in the story that it never completes, such as the storyline with Principal Minato (Yuko Tanaka), or with Erie (Hinata Hiiragi), a classmate of Minato and his father (Shido Nakamura). But that doesn’t change the story in the center Monster. It’s hard to talk about a movie without mentioning its best moments, but in groundhog day- like movement, we relive the same set of days, turning Monster into a kind of mystery.
Monster it’s technically a drama, but Kore-eda dresses the film in different genres, sometimes as a gothic horror, sometimes as a thriller, and sometimes as a detective story. The way Kore-eda positions the camera and creates tension is carefully considered. From Saori’s point of view, we know the least. Like it or not, parents tend to be the adults who know the least about their children. We’re left wondering with Saori about what’s going on with Minato, and our thoughts jump to the worst-case scenario. The end of Saori’s segment seems straight out of a gothic novel, full of howling winds and an approaching typhoon.
‘Monster’ challenges genres with ambiguous endings
With Hori we go deeper. We see Minato at school and we see the conclusions Hori comes to, but after seeing him at home, Hori’s interpretation is also not entirely accurate. But our opinion of a teacher changes after we’ve walked the proverbial mile in his shoes. Kore-eda is a generally unpleasant character who makes several rude remarks and acts disrespectful towards Saori, earning him sympathy.
With Minato, the pieces finally fit together and we’re not in a horror movie or a thriller. It’s something softer, sweeter and more innocent. His heart and emotional center is only revealed in the final act, when we learn the source of Minato’s problems and the truth about what is going on in his life. Peeling off the layers from different angles shows us what kind of kid Minato is, which is quite different from who we met in the first third of the movie.
In keeping with the film’s format, the story ends ambiguously, leaving the ending open to interpretation. Koreeda does enough hard work in the film that even that is somewhat satisfying. We still have questions, but these questions do not leave us feeling dissatisfied.
Rating: B+
Monster world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Source: Collider
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