A widow encounters silence from school authorities when she tries to understand the increasingly disturbing behavior of her only son.
Since the death of her husband, Saori (Sakura Ando) has been raising her only son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) alone. However, for some time now, the young boy’s behavior has worried him more and more. The latter asks him questions about a man who became monstrous after having the brain of a pig transplanted into him.
In the hope of clarifying the situation, Saori meets the director (Yuko Tanata) of the establishment, who has just lost her granddaughter, Minato’s teacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), and various members of the staff. school. Although everyone apologizes, no one says a word about what really happened. Then the mother meets a new friend of her son, Yori (Hinata Hiiragi).
Since his first feature film, Maborosi (1995), Hirokazu Kore-eda had not made a film for which he was not the screenwriter. He did well to accept Yuji Sakamoto’s proposal (Tokyo Eyes, by Jean-Pierre Limosin). A regular at the Croisette, the winner of the Jury Prize for Like father, like son (2013) and the Palme d’Or for A family matter (2018) was thus able to add to its honor roll the Best Screenplay award and the Queer Palm at the last Cannes Film Festival.
Borrowing the narrative structure of Rashomon (1950), by Akira Kurosawa, Monster (Monster, in French version) tells in three successive complementary points of view, those of Saori, Mr. Hori and Minato, the relationship between the latter and Yori. At the center of the story, the fire in a hostess bar that the teacher would have frequented. With the slightest delicacy, Sakamoto’s screenplay unravels the threads of the plot, reveals misunderstandings, reveals the true intentions of each character. With the same finesse different themes are explored, including single parenthood, the working condition, administrative burden, school bullying, marginality, the transition to adolescence.
Gently lulled by the latest soundtrack from the late Ryuichi Sakamoto (Furyoby Nagisa Oshima), Monster bears the signature of Hirokazu Kore-eda, great master of family chronicles and environmental paintings. With a concern for accuracy reminiscent of his beginnings in the documentary, he signs a production attentive to the smallest detail where the young actors prove to be astonishingly natural. While brilliantly maintaining the climate of mystery and anguish in which this painful tale of learning is bathed, he patiently leads everything until the truth gently emerges.
Indoors
Drama
Monster (V. F.: Monster)
Hirokazu Kore-eda
With Sakura Ando, Soya Kurokawa, Hinata Hiiragi
2:06 a.m.