Monster: A Multi-headed Evil

When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges.

REVIEW:

There are a lot of Monsters in Kore-eda‘s Monster. They’re mostly the ones of perception: those of ungrounded suspicions, gossip, fear, anxiety, conformity, self-hatred, shame. They pop up becoming suspect number one, only to prove baseless on seeing the other person’s story.

There are three stories of alleged child abuse being told all starting with a fire that ripples in rewind from mother, to teacher, to child. Monster tries first to put out these fires, than contain them, and finally, lets them smolder and die out in the waters of youthful hope and delight. The way it pieces together a total reality from separate perceptions is Rashomon in its approach. The audience sees the monsters that are blind to the characters.

The first view is of the widowed mother, Saori (Sakura Ando) who battles against the school bureaucracy and eventually the Japanese notions of shame and apology. The second is given to the alleged perpetrator of the abuse, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), the initial suspected monster, who is shown to be a sympathetic and innocent character. The third focuses on the child, Minato (Soya Kurokawa) and his friendship with Yori (Hinata Hiiragi).

Peope who are thought monsters are found to be simply fallible human beings. The school principle, Mrs. Fushimi (Yuko Tanaka) who insists on protecting the integrity of the school, even if it means maintaining a lie. Her coolness is both stoic and tragic. She is struggling with purpose and meaning after the death of a grandchild that is mainly her fault. And then, there is Yori’s father, Kiyotaka (Shido Nakamura), the only person close to being monstrous- a remorseful, grief stricken alcoholic wallowing in his own self-enforced unworthiness.

Here, there are no traditional families, just fractured or improvised ones. This is a society that conceals strife behind a veil of empty promises and ritualistic apologies. What actually happens doesn’t matter, just that the institution is protected from dishonor.

The most compelling characters are the two kids. The last view, which is theirs, is filled with the magical possibilities of childhood, the dissolving of their fears and hope in the green forest of wonder, innocence and true supportive friendship. They muse on being reborn, remade, reincarnated. Unlike the adults, they can let go of the fear. The ambiguous ending, which has them running joyously through the brightly lit forest, is either an omen of their death and ascension to heaven or just an expression of their ideal self, unburdened from responsibility, a joyous union of two souls forever permanently bonded together. Being the optimist I saw the second, while my wife saw the first.

Monster has echoes of dangerous things happening, that never truly come to be. It’s consumed with fire, but also dowsing rain. It shifts from stories of misunderstanding to understanding, mutual comprehension. Once the fire has been doused, the waters of night have receded, the sun comes out.