Monster review: A deceptively simple yet engaging drama about adolescent child's emotional terrain told from three different perspectives
When it was first announced that Japanese auteur Kore-eda Hirokazu who won the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for his previous directorial venture Shoplifters (2018), was working on a new film titled ‘Monster’, many assumed it would be a dark psychological thriller, as the film’s title suggests. What didn’t help is that the film’s trailer and all of the promotional material released thus far lead us to believe that Monster might be a gripping dark thriller drama that will leave audiences with major moral or ethical dilemmas. But, strangely, ‘Monster’ is not here to put you in moral and ethical dilemmas as the title suggests.
Yes, there are a few questions raised about how we humans can ruin someone’s life with our biassed opinions or preconceived notions, and the film employs the Rushomon effect to demonstrate this, but the film mostly stays in the realm of simple drama about what’s going on in the lives of three people: a 10-year-old boy named Minato, his mother, and his school teacher Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama).
The film begins with visuals of a burning building and there is relaxing music playing in the background, providing a stark contrast. Then we see a young probably 10 year old kid named Minato (Soya Kurokawa) and his widowed mother Saori (Sakura Ando) peering out their flat window at the burning building, and the boy asks his mother what that human would be called if he exchanged the pig’s brain? This strange question has a lot of relevance in this film, and you discover its relevance as the plot progresses. Soon this widowed mother starts noticing behavioural changes in her beloved son, who becomes irritable and angry. She starts wondering if this is just the beginning of adolescence, or something else. After a particularly violent incident, she confronts him and discovers that one of his teachers Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama) scolded him that he is a nasty person with a pig’s brain. How she reacts to this and how the teacher Mr. Hori and school management will handle the situation forms the rest of the plot.
Yuji Sakamoto, the scriptwriter, and Kore-eda Hirokazu the auteur director, cleverly use the Rushomon effect to present the story from the perspectives of a 10-year-old boy, his widowed mother, and his teacher, who is accused of assaulting the boy. The film is around 120 minutes long, and every 40 minutes the film switches its perspective and shows the story from another person’s point of view. Another aspect of the film for which both the screenwriter and director should be commended is that, it explores some dark themes, such as how a young 10-year-old child and a young adult can look at the same incident from completely different perspectives, and how a simple incident which an adult might just completely ignore, can have a significant impact on the small child who sees and understands the world in a completely different way. However, in order to examine these gloomy issues and the differences in the psychology of children and adults, the writer and director do not opt to go on the dark psychological thriller road, which would have been a much preferred and easier way to generate a lot of publicity and attention on social media. Instead they choose to remain on this mostly unexplored path that might not generate a lot of hype on social media but will definitely get some following from genuine cinema lovers around the world.
The film becomes a little slow in the last half hour, which may try the patience of someone who is not used to viewing these kinds of slow drama films. Also, the ‘friendship’ between Minato and Yuri may offend some people, particularly given the age of the children in the film, as both are yet to enter their adolescence. Another component that I believed was underexplored was the emotional turmoil of the school principal.
All of the actors, particularly the two child artists, did an excellent job of depicting the inner struggle without going overboard or appearing to be pretending. They surely excelled at it. Furthermore, adult artists Sakura Ando, who represented the child’s mother, and Eita Nagayama, who played the child’s teacher, do an excellent job of depicting the emotional and social obstacles their characters confront. Another element that needs a special note is Ryuichi Sakamoto’s brilliantly composed calming musical score. (It was also his final cinematic production). The score beautifully captures these various perspectives of every character and reveals the intricacies of the film’s emotional terrains.
Overall, this new film by Japanese auteur Kore-eda Hirokazu may not be considered a cult classic, but it is a good watch for anyone looking for good content with emotional depth.
Cast: Sakura Andō, Eita Nagayama, Sōya, Kurokawa, Hinata Hiiragi, Yūko Tanaka
Writer: Kore-eda Hirokazu
Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu
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