Soya Kurokawa

Hinata Hiiragi

Sakura Ando

Eita Nagayama

Yuko Tanaka

Mitsuki Takahata

Akihiro Kakuta

Shido Nakamura

Ryu Morioka

Daisuke Kuroda

Ayu Kitaura

Haruto Kobayashi

Kouga Yagishita

Taichi Kanemitsu

Harune Iida

Shiyun Nakamura

Peey

Kayo Noro

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Kenji Yamada

Genki Kawamura

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Mutsuki Sakai

Shôichi Morimoto

Kazuko Kurosawa

Atsushi Sahara

Stefania Kolarz

Yuji Sakamoto

Soichi Satake

Damian Fabich

Ichiro Goto

Nicolas Leon Flores

Valy Lungoccia

Tatsuya Shimada

Yûki Izumi

Keiko Mitsumatsu

Kazuhiko Tomita

Tomasz Dyrduła

Grzegorz Kapelczak

Andrzej Przydatek

Rafal Gosieniecki

Tomasz Przydatek

Adam Tunikowski

Michal Dwojak

Katarzyna Zumirska

Kamil Kryński

Rie Tabata

Seweryn Czarnecki

Ryota Hamaguchi

Takuma Tsuboi

Tomotaka Yokoo

Mayu Yamashita

Anna Zimowska

Chiho Asada

Tomoko Oshida

Eiji Watanabe

Akihiko Okase

Seo Hyeon-Seon

Megumi Banse

Toshie Tabata

Kaoru Matsuzaki

Toru Ota

Hisashi Usui

Hijiri Taguchi

Hajime Ushioda

Eiji Oshita

Ryūto Kondō

Minami Ichikawa

Tatsumi Yoda

Taichi Ito

Mystery

Thriller

Drama

怪物

TOHO

Fuji Television Network

AOI Pro.

BUN-BUKU

GAGA Corporation

Japan

日本語

Monster

friendship

japan

bullying

elementary school

coming of age

school

teacher student relationship

childhood

lgbt

childhood friends

multiple perspectives

masculinity

kids

somber

philosophical

mother son relationship

gay theme

boys' love (bl)

lgbt child

adoring

elementary schools in japan

Lachlan Thiele

INT. COOKIE MONSTER – NIGHT

Monster is the latest entry in the Kore-eda filmography (a filmography I still need to dive deeper into). Still, just like his previous films, It's a deeply personal look into a character, their motives but most importantly, how that motive affects those around them.

Monster is a multi-layered beast; it retells one story from multiple perspectives giving us the whole cookie instead of just the crumbs. Usually, I'm a crumb kinda guy; I like to figure things out myself, putting them all together to get my cookie. Still, Kore-eda gives me the cookie; at points, he just hands the cookie over when instead I would have preferred the traditional 'show, don't tell' filmmaker mentality. Yet, without that one little critique Monster would have shot right up to a 4-star thanks to its standout performances from Sakura Ando as the mother and excellent direction (especially when it comes to blocking actors within a scene, yeah, I know a weird thing to point out but something I wrote down while watching) 

Anyway, please head out and see this one. It's worth the spoon-feeding.

FADE OUT.

Brent Marchant

The perspective from which we view a situation infallibly provides us with a clear, irrefutable picture of its truthfulness, right? But what happens if we encounter someone who witnesses the same incident and comes away from it with a totally different interpretation? Both views can’t be “right,” can they? Or is it possible that none of us can see the totality of a scenario and claim to know everything about it? That’s the core takeaway from director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s latest feature, an ambitious, skillfully crafted tale told from multiple vantage points, all of them “correct” in their own right, despite the myriad differences that distinguish them from one another, a storytelling technique first developed by Japanese master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in the screen classic “Rashomon” (1950). Kore-eda’s cinematic homage to the famed auteur, told in three separate but interconnected segments, focuses on the exploits of a rebellious pre-teen (Soya Kurokawa) seemingly prone to acting out as a bully. The youth’s unpredictable behavior, however, doesn’t tell the whole story. His actions appear to be cryptically interwoven with those of his overly protective widowed mother (Sakura Ando), his young middle school teacher (Eita Nagayama), his aging, softspoken principal (Yuko Tanaka), and his effervescent best friend (Hinata Hiiragi), many of whom aren’t always what they seem to be. There are forces at work here that are a cause for concern, prompting the often-asked question, “Who is the monster?”, a query that provides the inspiration for this film’s title. It’s intriguing to watch how the picture’s various story threads come together, reminding us of the old adage of not judging a book by its cover, poignantly illustrating that, no matter how much we may think we know about a particular situation, there’s a good chance we’ll never get a complete picture of it. Kore-eda serves up an eye-opening tale, one that gives us pause to think about our impressions and preconceptions in an age when many of us are all too quick to superficially judge what we see – and in a frequently flawed framework at that. The picture could stand to be a little more swiftly paced at times (especially in the final act), but this is arguably the director’s best and most sensitive work to date, one that, we can only hope, will have the kind of profound impact we need in an age where open-mindedness and tolerance are traits we could all stand to develop to a much greater degree – particularly when pieces of the puzzle are missing.

CinemaSerf

I'm not usually a fan of children leading films, but hats have to come off here for a really delightful performance from the young Hinata Hiiragi as the shy and shunned "Hoshikawa". We will get to him in a minute, but first the film is delivered in three parts as a fire slowly devours a city centre tower block. The first episode introduces us to "Minato" (Soya Kurukawa). He's a bright and friendly boy who lives with his widowed mother (Sakura Ando). She starts to notice that his behaviour is a becoming a bit erratic and after some investigation begins to suspect that he is being bullied at school. A visit to the recently bereaved Principal (Yûko Tanaka) reveals that his teacher "Hori" (Eita Nagayama) might be the culprit and apologies are made. The next segment takes up the same story, only this time we look from the perspective of the teacher, a caring and enthusiastic professional. Though there are similarities between the two scenarios, the conclusion from the first doesn't quite tie up with the information from the second. Then to the final instalment where the two boys take and hold really well the centre stage of this drama and we get to grips with the puzzles set already and discover more about their complex characters. It's this third phase that is quite captivating to watch. The older boy must tread a thin line between a peer pressure that thinks his friend is odd, even that he has "a pig's brain" whilst he, himself, realises that "Hoshikawa" is a friendly, curious and loyal lad who has quite a few domestic demons of his own to face, on pretty much a daily basis. Amongst the adults, there's plenty going on too. The head teacher is clearly sitting on a fairly hefty secret of her own and "Mr. Hori" faces a series of predicaments that reminded me a little of the recent "Teacher's Lounge". A typhoon, some tunnels and an old railway carriage provide a perfect focus for the concussion that isn't so much that, it's an invitation to see what might happen next. The director excels here at putting us into the minds of the children and of the adults whilst also allowing our own observations to watch a story of two young children at a sensitive stage of their lives - and it really does make you think and reminisce about your own childhood in equal measure. 

This film is the highest compliment to Kurasawa's Rashoman I've ever seen. Others have tried the (perhaps bonsai rule-of-three inspired) triple-POV, but I've always just witnessed a "yeah, so what." But this film - Kore-Eda's vision? Kurasawa himself would stand up and bow. It takes the master's style to a completely new level.

Yuji Sakamoto and Kore-Eda have created the perfect film here. It's tight, it's paced incredibly well, and it's complex and layered like a fine wine. Kore-Eda threw away the book of film directing, and created two hours of in-your-face, up front and personal story-telling. And surprisingly, it worked quite well here.

And Ryuichi Sakamoto's score? Is this where we talk about life after death? It's a masterful fit for Kore-Eda's vision.

Monster( 2023)

Are they the ones we dream of, or the ones we fail to see among us?

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A review by Lachlan Thiele

Written by Lachlan Thiele on Thu May 18 2023

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