Hirokazu Kore-eda explores a childhood friendship with too much complexity in “Monster”

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Continuing his favorite family theme, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda focuses on the subject of childhood in a sophisticated film.

After winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like father, like sonand a Palme d’or in 2018 for A family matterHirokazu Kore-eda is once again in competition with Monster. Film on the fusional friendship between two children of CM2, its very complex construction takes away the charm and part of the emotion expected on such a subject.

Exploded narrative

Minato, a fifth-grade student, has a disruptive behavior that isolates him from his classmates. Raised by her widowed mother, she constantly confronts the authority of the college, while the problem seems to come from a professor with violent behavior. For his part, Minato finds in Eri a true friend who, however, does not want the other students to know. Their fusional friendship will isolate them more and more from their entourage until an irreversible headlong rush.

Childhood has been a major theme in movies for at least Driving Zero (1934) by Jean Vigo. The 400 Blows (1959) by François Truffaut also remains a major reference found in Monster, where the Japanese Kore-eda recounts the friendship between two children who are the same age as in the French film. Minato also has a behavior that bothers adults as much as that of the young Doinel in Truffaut. But where the emotion emanated from a story with linear progression for the Frenchman, Kore-eda opted for an exploded narration where one loses the thread of the subject.

metaphysics of childhood

Monster multiplies the points of view and the temporalities to lose the reason. First told through the eyes of the mother, it passes to that of the teacher, then of the child, the three interfering more or less throughout the film. Scenes are left in suspense without knowing the conclusion, as during the search for the children by the parents in the torrential rain. If Kore-eda asks for the spectator’s participation to create the link between them, the coherence of the story escapes and the film favors open interpretations, a little too much no doubt.

In a completely different genre, 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick played with such bias, but the subject lent itself to it more than that of a childhood friendship. Kore-eda, however, seems to be in continuity with Kubrick when he evokes in Minato’s words the fate of the universe (the “big crunch”), and reincarnation, subjects which obsess him. Their metaphysical tenor, moreover, joins those of 2001. If the Japanese director has every reason to tint his approach to childhood with gravity in Monsterit is however at the risk of losing some of the spectators.

The sheet

Gender : Drama
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Actors: Sakura Ando, ​​Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa
Country : Japan
Duration : 2h06
Exit : Shortly
Distributer : Goodfellas

Summary: Young Minato’s behavior is of growing concern. His mother, who has been raising him alone since the death of her husband, decides to confront the educational team at her son’s school. Everything seems to point to Minato’s teacher as responsible for the problems encountered by the young boy. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher, and child, the truth turns out to be far more complex and nuanced than anyone had originally anticipated…


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