Monster
The film Monster, written by Yuji Sakamoto and directed by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, is a 2023 Japanese feature film.
This beguiling film twists from one point of view to another challenging and revising the viewer’s understanding of character, theme and story.
What initially looks like a case of inappropriate teacher-student relations by way of bullying between a junior high school teacher Hori and the protagonist Minato gives way to a careful character study contingent on the perspective being taken.
This shifting perspective is crucial in Kore-eda’s approach to the film. Adopting the point of view of different characters both directs the story in a particular direction as well as blindsiding not only the characters but the audience too. By the film’s end, initial judgements are seen to be hasty and ill-informed.
Kore-eda has a wonderful ability to depict children and the confusion that often confronts them in their apprehension of the adult world. He harnesses this brilliantly in the relationship between the protagonist Minato and his classmate Yori, a relationship which is central to the film. The director uses it to examine destructive issues of abuse and bullying before ultimately lending us the tender theme of childhood love between two boys.
The film’s title is both literal and figurative with Yori’s father emblematic of the former in the brutal indictment of his son’s same sex affections as ‘monstrous’ and in need of ‘curing’; and the latter to any number of interpretations such as prejudicial parental and societal views on same sex love, the poisonous effect of judgmental attitudes, and ultimately the limitation of perspectives.
Monster is rich in character and theme and Kore-eda handles the storyline like a jewel, revealing one facet at a time until at last the entire stone astonishes the viewer.
Rosh
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DVDs
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