The Plot: Following the death of her husband, single mother Saori (Sakura Ando) has been raising her only child Minato (Soya Kurokawa). It hasn’t been an easy task, as Minato is a troubled boy with much on his mind. When Minato reports that his teacher Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama) has physically assaulted and demeaned him, Saori demands direct answers and immediate action from the school. However, she only meets inaction and deep regret from the school principal Fushimi (Yuko Tanaka)…
The Verdict: While directors Hayao Miyazaki and Takashi Miike have been busily working away in their respective areas of anime and genre cinema, Hirokazu Kore-eda has established himself as the master observer of the contemporary Japanese family drama. With a nod to the great Yasujiro Ozu before him, Kore-eda has an innate understanding of the human condition and how to portray ordinary characters going through extraordinary challenges and the resultant change – hopefully for the better. His latest film Monster is no exception to this, as it takes a long view of one story from three different perspectives. Rashomon-style if you like, but Kore-eda is less interested in finding the truth and more interested in observing how people have different perspectives. Not necessarily being false, but each of them has their own unique view of the world.
Yuji Sakamoto’s script is drawn from personal experience of his own youth and that authenticity trickles down into the characterisation. It’s structured from the perspective of the mother, the teacher and the son in that order. Saori is a concerned mother who is incensed at the lack of a proper response from the school. The subject of her ire Mr Hori is a reactive teacher who has a habit of saying and doing the wrong thing at the wrong time… but that doesn’t necessarily make him a monster. Finally, Minato is dealing with the pressure of growing up and latent feelings for another student. Monster is a well-used title for a film, but it comes across as appropriate for this one given that it tackles questionable behaviour. ‘Who is the monster?’ is an oft-repeated question in the film. Parents, children and teachers are all by turns monsters here but of the human kind. Or maybe they’re just struggling with the daily challenges of life.
With his customary discretion, Kore-eda handles this with a sophisticated sensitivity. There’s not a hint of soapy melodrama here. Any suds have been thoroughly rinsed out of the script and the performances. He directs his actors with pinpoint precision to get to the emotional core of the character and their individual perspective. He’s said that each of the characters, to some degree, are imprisoned by invisible walls. That is certainly true given how concentrated the performances are, saying little but revealing a lot through the eyes and body language (Yuko Tanaka’s guilt-ridden school principal in particular). Perhaps only Kore-eda could turn a contemporary family drama into a gripping depiction of the chasms that exist between characters who fail to communicate properly to each other.
Rating: 4 / 5
Review by Gareth O’Connor
