Review - Monster
My brain was switched with a pig’s brain.
Directed by: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Written by: Yuji Sakamoto
Starring: Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Sōya Kurokawa
Running Time: 125 minutes
Rating: 4/5
Who’s the monster?
Like the title suggests, Monster, is a commanding presence of grotesque, morbid and/or nefarious nature. It is also the most explicitly effortless term that can be used to define and cement one’s very being as absolutely inferior or inadequate within social, communal and cultural contexts. It unfortunately can be used to eliminate and strip down the humanity of one’s mind, body and soul.
In his sixteenth feature, celebrated Japanese auteur, Hirokazu Kore-eda returns with Monster; another family melodrama that dives deep into the intricate complexities of social and communal relationships between children and adults but also the secrets and truths that are lost in the midst of pre-emptive assumptions, mournful grievances and emotional turmoils. Kore-eda’s newest feature examines the way relationships ebb and flow through the repercussions of stark decisions, indecisions and fearful silence. Every day becomes a battlefield, a gradual build of communal tension and a wistful tug-of-war of heart versus heart; idealism, traditionalism, societal and familial insecurities all expand upon layers and layers of complexities, intricacies and emotional highs and lows. Monster is a love story deeply rooted in human nature’s dependencies on one another. The good and the bad.
When a young boy, Minato, begins to act strangely at home and at school, his mother, Mugino (the magnificent Sakura Ando) suspects the worst in her son’s every day routine at school. As layers of Minato’s complex behaviour begin to unravel, Kore-eda empathetically explores multiple perspectives, interweaving narratives and characters towards an intimately moving emotional catharsis.
The film made its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palm d’Or. The film was awarded the Queer Palm and best screenplay of the festival. While the film is deeply rooted in many of the familiar thematic bloodlines of Kore-eda’s filmography - his passion for intimate storytelling, complex family relationships and their challenges within a socital and cultural community - Monster, in many ways, feels distinctly different and familiar at the same time. The film is Kore-eda's second film in his filmography that he did not write; collaborating with Yuji Sakamoto, famed Japanese author and storyteller, Monster can be likened to an off-shoot companion piece to an Asghar Farhadi film. A screenplay that feels lifted from Rashomon; the film marries and weaves conflicting and differing character point of views that reveal truths, secrets and revel in powerful emotional heartbeats that often complicate what we, the audience, may believe is morally and ethically believe is just or right.
Like many of his other films, Kore-eda's focus on the complexity of human nature is at its best and most poignant in its simplicity. Characters never feel forced in their decisions, actions or beliefs, Kore-eda and Sakamoto frames each and every perspective as inherently human; compelling in their insecurities, anxieties, and most of all, their silence. Monster unravels like a tense novella, every page and every chapter changes the way you seek the truth, the answers and one’s absolute definition of human nature and identity.
Even after sixteen films in his stunning filmography; Monster feels both like a rebirth or yet, a stylistic reinvention, that feels familiar in in thematic and narrative heart but yet a step into uncharted territory. Kore-eda is a modern master of the human condition, a revelatory exploration of poignant tenderness - there is no Monster here, but yet a touching, powerful and beautiful tale of unrequited love, selflessness and identity. There is never a sense of true despair in a Kore-eda film, but one of reconciliation and hope for a new day.
