After filming exploits in South Korea (Broker) and Paris (The Truth), Hirokazu Kore-eda returns to his own Japan to experience more loss, loneliness, and broken families. Monster is essentially Rashomon meets Waterloo Road meets The Towering Inferno, with the director telling a heartfelt story from the perspectives of a parent, teacher, and student in order of succession. Though at times difficult to follow, Kore-eda’s picture is characterized by a kind and giving spirit, clear cinematography, and outstanding performances, solidifying his status as one of the top children’s directors of our time.
Every story cycle begins with a planned fire at a hostess bar in a Japanese village on a lake. A larger mystery gurgles beneath the plot about who ignited the fire, but Kore-eda keeps the subject squarely in his delicate-drama wheelhouse. At the beginning of the story, 11-year-old Minato (Sōya Kurokawa) tells his mother Saori (Sakura Andō) that he was struck by teacher Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), who is said to have visited the burning knocking shop on a regular basis, and the ensuing aftermath.
Another exquisite contemplation on the challenge of achieving happiness
Is the young man telling lies? Is the instructor an oddball? Monster thoroughly explores every possibility by reenacting the events from several points of view. Your comprehension of the individuals is enhanced by each distinct portrayal, but more significantly, it causes your feelings and allegiances to vacillate like an Essex foam party from the 1990s. Just the viewpoints shift—Kore-eda taking advantage of our propensity to constantly expect the worst—while the events themselves remain the same.
Despite the fact that the filmmaker is using Yuji Sakamoto’s screenplay—which he hasn’t written on his own in almost 30 years—this still feels like a Kore-eda production. A single running shoe has a deeper resonance in each rendition, and as always with Kore-eda, the performances are spot-on. There is also an abundance of exquisite detail on exhibit. Shoplifters’ Sakura Andō is a force as the mother tearing into teachers she feels are concealing Mr Hori’s bullying, and the film lacks her presence when it turns tack. Kurokawa, another graduate of the Kore-eda School of Child Acting Prodigies, has a wonderfully carved androgynous classmate connection with Hinata Hiiragi.
Although the structural tricks occasionally undermine the film’s emotional impact, it lacks the effortless simplicity of the director’s best work but is nevertheless a stunning meditation on how hard it is to attain happiness. The cherry on top is Ryuichi Sakamoto’s (his final) score, whose melancholic, piano-driven pieces lend an aura of melancholy. The cumulative effect of these pieces is unleashed in the film’s joyful concluding minutes.