Monster (2023)
Original title: Kaibutsu
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Minato, an 11-year-old boy living with his widowed mother, begins to act strangely and returns home from school increasingly distressed. All signs point to a teacher as the cause, prompting his mother to rush to the school to uncover what’s happening. However, the truth turns out to be something entirely different, revealing a profound and moving story of friendship.
One might call it “Kore-eda’s perspectivism,” a characteristic device often seen in his films where an object or story, once seemingly understood, fundamentally changes when the perspective shifts. Frequently, what appeared as a crime from the outside transforms into an act of love from the inside, or vice versa, as in the final act of Shoplifters. There, a shift from the viewpoint of familial relationships to that of the police turns a seemingly loving story into one marked by obsession, deception, and pathology.
This interest in the elusive nature of truth is why Kore-eda is so drawn to the notion of procedural truth—a form of reality that must be articulated, often leading to a bewildering exchange and inversion of meanings, as seen in The Third Murder. This leaves the audience questioning what truth truly is.
In Monster—marking Kore-eda’s return to Japan after The Truth (2019) in France and Broker (2022) in Korea—the story revolves around the dramatic fire at a “Hostess bar” in the small town of Suwa, Nagano. As is typical in Kore-eda’s cinema, the fire is laden with symbolism, metaphorically reflecting the tensions between the film’s characters.
The first tension is between the young widow Saori (played by the brilliant Sakura Ando) and her son Minato (Soya Kurokawa, another of Kore-eda’s prodigious child actors), who behaves increasingly mysteriously. From Minato’s vague words, Saori deduces that he is being bullied by his new elementary school teacher, Hori. A meeting between Saori, the odd principal (traumatized by her niece’s recent death), and the socially awkward teacher only confirms Saori’s worst fears. But when the story shifts to Hori’s perspective, everything changes: Minato is not the victim but the bully, influenced by his peers who target Eri, a classmate traumatized by his father’s sadistic behavior, which has convinced him his brain has been replaced by that of a pig. There is also tension between the principal and an unspeakable secret from her past.
However, nothing is as it seems. The real “fire” consuming the town is the Freudian discovery of sexuality by Minato and Eri, with their bullying behavior concealing an intense relationship far deeper than mere friendship.
Kore-eda’s cinema is known for its emotional depth, yet perhaps due to a script not written by him (the first since 1995) or Ryūichi Sakamoto’s overly grandiose musical score, Monster is less effective than his best works. The final part, nearly a film within a film, explores Minato and Eri’s relationship, delving into gender fluidity and childhood complicity, pushing Kore-eda out of his usual comfort zones—reminiscent of Lukas Dhont’s Close. It seems Kore-eda, in the years following Shoplifters, is searching for a new direction for his cinema, though the contours are still taking shape.
Pietro Bianchi
Cineforum, August 21, 2024
