Monster Review
Monster is a rare beast for legendary Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda. Not since Maborosi, his feature debut, has Kore-eda directed a film he didn't write himself, yet the chance to finally work with one of his favourite writers, Yuji Sakamoto, changed all that. Monster is also the first Kore-eda film to not just be nominated, but win the Queer Palm at Cannes (although his early documentary titled August Without Him would have likely been a contender for its intimate study of Hirata Yutaka — the first openly gay AIDS sufferer in Japan — had this award existed in 1994).
Yet what's perhaps most unusual about Monster is that you wouldn't even know it's a queer film for at least two-thirds of its runtime, to the point where some audiences still don't realise by the end, even after the credits have rolled. Both Kore-eda and Sakamoto have since confirmed that Monster is of course queer, hence the Queer Palm win, but it's fascinating to hear different takes like this on a film where queerness is actually integral to every facet of the story.
To be fair, Monster does like to toy with its audience. In fact, conflicting interpretations of the same event comprise the film's entire structure which uncoils slowly, layer by layer, until a beautifully devastating puzzle box is revealed at its centre.
As tempting as it might be, don't compare Monster to Rashomon, another Japanese film widely regarded as the blueprint when it comes to these kind of ambiguous, contradictory narratives. Unlike Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece, it's not the people who change. Here, it's the titular "Monster" itself — a metaphorical beast — that shifts and alters depending on whose viewpoint we're following and what we ourselves bring to this story.
Kore-eda's 16th feature begins through the eyes of Saori Mugino (Sakura Andō), a single mother who grows concerned when her son Minato (Sōya Kurokawa) starts acting strangely. It soon becomes apparent that things might not be right at school, so Saori marches in only to discover a bizarrely muted response from Minato's teacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama) and principal Makiko Fushimi (Yūko Tanaka), who's still grieving the recent loss of her grandchild.
Everything is not as it seems, even in the second part when Mr. Hori suddenly becomes the lens through which this all plays out. However, it's not until Monster's final third that we learn the truth when Minato's friendship with classmate Yori Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi) comes into focus. Across all three segments, every subsequent scene challenges and even derails our assumptions about what's happening as each moment slots into another like jigsaw pieces scattered throughout these intersecting lives.
"Who is the monster?" Minato sings at the start when his mother finds him in a tunnel, and "Who is the monster?" Yori asks again later when bullies trap him in a bathroom cubicle. For a title that feels so fixed and sure of itself, the word "Monster" isn't as immutable as you might think. It's a question that permeates the experiences of everyone involved, both in and out of the world that Kore-eda has created.
Whether it be through actual bullying and the threat of physical violence or merely pretending to listen and care at times when it's needed most, every character becomes a monster to someone else depending on the circumstances. That's even true of the children. Minato doesn't step in to help his friend at first, afraid that the bullies will mark him out as different. And even sweet Yori himself becomes a monster to Minato when he begins to see that their friendship might amount to something more; a realisation that disgusts and terrifies him in the moment.
There are hints of this burgeoning shame throughout the film which are much more evident on a rewatch, such as when Minato claims to have a subhuman "pig" brain" or when the boys draw a "monster" symbol with a heart as they grow closer. Boys at that age often struggle to understand or define these feelings, making it easier for others to project their own hurtful labels onto them, which can then be internalised. Such disorientation is also reflected formally in how Kore-eda deliberately disconcerts us with the shifting, seemingly contradictory puzzle elements that comprise his narrative, a combined effect of Sakamoto's words and Kore-eda's editing. Yet it's when the boys find a new direction together that the film suddenly settles on something more stable and even positive compared to what's come before.
Hinata Hiiragi and Soya Kurokawa in Monster. Photograph: suenaga makoto
Moving on from the dark adult world of the first two segments, Monster tentatively treads into brighter, even optimistic territory, switching out the dark tunnel from the start to an abandoned train carriage that the boys fill with light and warmth. Decorated with makeshift handmade ornaments, this secret haven becomes a safe space where they can sort through their developing feelings without fear of pressure or judgement. It's there that they refine a secret written language for themselves, as so many queer people often do.
This reverse pull towards what could be considered a fairy-tale-like ending is echoed in the pair's conversation about the Big Crunch, a cosmic re-shuffling that will one day throw the universe backwards in a reverse direction. As childishly crude as their understanding of it might be — "poop will go back into our butts" — this notion of defying the natural order of things in order to be born anew is remarkably astute, not to mention prescient of what's to come.
However, the outside world still does its best to intrude on their connection and hope for a happy ending, as seen in Minato's growing doubts and Yori's impending relocation. The titular "Monster" is no longer one particular figure or entity by this point. It's a systemic resentment of all things deemed "wrong" that deviate from what's collectively considered to be the "norm". Yet the sweet, innocent connection Minato and Yori have forged continues into the film's final moments despite all that, even after a literal typhoon (that they compare to the Big Crunch) hits their refuge.
Emerging from the mud, the boys ask each other if they were reborn. "We weren't," they decide, and with that, they run forward into the light of dawn together, giggling and shouting as the (usually static) camera races with them through the greenery towards a new beginning. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s emotive "Aqua" begins to play through this sequence and into the credits, suggesting a limitless joy that the pair will carry forward as their childhood stretches out before them. Yet their fate remains tantalisingly ambiguous.
Whatever becomes of them, and whether the children are even alive at the end, isn't for us to know. Children are always unknowable to some degree, a fact that frightens the parents and teachers in this film, and that's especially true of queer kids whose lives and outlook will always be intrinsically different. Whether this leads to joy or pain, life or death, one thing we do know is that Monster explores these ideas with an elegant poise embodied by standout performances from everyone involved. That's especially true of the two child actors, Sōya Kurokawa and Hinata Hiiragi, who perfectly capture that liminal space between innocence and desire that's still so rarely seen anywhere, let alone in Japanese cinema. Monster truly is a queer film like no other in that sense.
A rare beast indeed.