Monster

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director, producer, screen-writer and editor, whose latest film ‘Monster’ (2023) we show on November 6^th. We were first introduced to his prodigious talent with ‘Still Walking’ in 2008, apparently based on his own family, where the Yokoyama family come together for twenty-four hours every year, to commemorate the anniversary of the accidental death of the eldest son, who drowned saving the life of a boy. The boy, now a young man, is persuaded by the parents to join them each year for an uncomfortable meeting. As he is now rather overweight, lazy and aimless, they believe that he should have died instead of their talented son, and need to have someone to blame for the death. The three generations of the family exchange low-key gossip, grievances and resentments without major drama, in a truthful and delicate film full of warmth, humour and humanity.

     Over the years we have shown ‘I Wish’ in 2011, ‘Like Father, Like Son’ in 2013, ‘Our Little Sister’ in 2015, ‘After the Storm’ in 2016, whilst our last Kore-eda showing was ‘Shoplifters’ in 2018. This has been his most successful film so far, winning the Palme D’or prize at Cannes and the best foreign language film at the Academy Awards.

    ‘Shoplifters’ is a portrait of a poor makeshift but loving ‘family’ who stay afloat by shoplifting sprees, and on one such outing rescue a young girl in the freezing cold, taking her home with them. She thrives in this loving environment, but an unexpected incident eventually splits the group up, and she is returned to her neglectful parents. Kore-eda wrote the screenplay contemplating what makes a family, a recurring theme throughout all his films. His socially conscious, humanist screenplays are often compared to those of the greatest Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu (of ‘Tokyo Story’ (1953) fame), but he states that Ken Loach is more of an influence. One cinematic quirk he does share with Ozu, however, is that trains or train journeys appear frequently in his films, symbolising his characters moving through life.

   And so to ‘Monster’ (2023), Kore-eda’s deeply moving, coming-of-age tale of childhood friendship. When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, single mother Saori knows that something is wrong. Fearing that one of his teachers might be responsible, she storms into the school demanding answers. As the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth begins to emerge as the perspective of each unfolds, together revealing more of the complete story. This is a clever, mysterious film with a big heart.

‘Breathtaking’ Vanity Fair, ‘Extraordinary’ Cinevue, ‘*****’ Financial Times.

A:

Great watch. Part Rashomon, Part Japanese Grange Hill! Excellent all round (A) Look at the synonyms for ‘Monster’; they are all in this film. (A) Great concept & arrangements of different perspectives.(A)
Beautifully filmed and moving. (A) Great acting. Japan seems to really get subtle relationships. A beautiful but sad ending. (A) Heart-warming. Beautiful performances from the boys! (A) Magnificent children – what actors. It was all the grown-ups getting it wrong! (A) Great film. (A) Good to know there aren’t any monsters.(A) Complex structurally, psychologically and emotionally. Engrossing.(A) Terrific film of friendship & complexities of school life etc (A) Love the perspectives (A)

B:

Emotional, everyone was hurting. (B) Moving, touching. Very well done. (B) What happened to the mum though?(B) Touching and strange.(B) Mesmeric (B) Too much going on. Too long – confusing, yet moving and watchable. (B)
Poor Mr Humi. Who’d be a teacher! (B) It all made some sense in the end! (B)
Initially hard to follow but made sense in the (sad) end. (B) Difficult to understand sometimes. Culture challenging. Subtitles cryptic. Ultimately successful. (B) Absorbing story beautifully told from different perspectives. (B) Clever, intriguing, entertaining & thought provoking (B) An insight into Japanese culture. (B)

C:

Interesting but confusing. (C) Good, but strange. (C)A disturbing watch (C) Very sad (C) And what was that all about? (C) Between C & D. Prob closer to D. Dragged in parts & confusing. (C/D)

D:

Good in parts. Generally not up to my expectation (D) Got rather bored but some of it was stunning (D)

IMDB details