Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest, “Monster” (2023), marks a return to home turf. On his previous two outings, the Japanese director strayed beyond his roots and usual language of choice, yielding mixed results even if his signature textures of warm humanity popped in bits and pieces. With “Monster,” the director tries to clinch what makes his work so enduring and moving. While this is the first time in many years he has directed from a script not written by him, children remain central to it. Yuji Sakamoto’s screenplay teases a host of familiar connections and threads as it weaves a deliberate puzzle that unfolds in three acts from varying perspectives.
Monster (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with a fire that has broken out in a building. This event hovers over the narrative in ways that initially appear as peripheral. Divided into three sections, the first is that of the single mother, Saori (Sakura Ando), who is struggling to get a grip on her son, Minato. She is concerned with the bruises he has when he comes from school. Minato (Soya Kurokawa) also keeps fleeing home. She finds him in a decrepit tunnel muddied up. Saori charges into school, demanding explanations, including slurs that she thinks a teacher, Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama), must have hurled at her kid.
The first section stresses her vivid disorientation, her hitting a wall as she seeks definitive answers that’d help her understand her own son and his moods. She strongly suggests that the school authorities look into Mr. Hori since she is certain that he is the cause of everything. On the meetings where the principal, Makiko (Yuko Tanaka), sits in as well, she fiercely airs her fears and suspicions but receives, to her frustration, notes of acknowledgment and no promise of corrective action.
She insists Hori own up to the hurt she is resolute he has inflicted on Minato. She doesn’t flinch from insinuating Hori’s questionable propriety and character, drawing on rumors of his frequenting the hostess bar. The authorities, however, try to keep a distance between the parent and teacher, attempting to contain the extent of her complaint. It is when Hori exclaims to her that Minato bullied a classmate, Yori ( Hinata Hiiragi), that Saori is thrown off track. Her certainties are unsettled.
Is Mr. Hori the monster?
The film relies on this particular unsettlement of certainties as it jolts the viewer into the second section, which unfurls through Hori’s perspective. This strand also opens with the fire in the vicinity, giving a deeper glance at Hori’s speculated relationship with one of the women from the bar. This relationship comes under duress as Hori’s professional life is cast into question. It turns out that Hori is not as cruel as Saori would have us think. He is always eager to help his students out beyond the space of the classroom. He is the furthest thing from the monster Saori thinks he is with her son. The teacher is also frazzled by Minato’s ways. He seeks to understand, but Minato isn’t the kind of kid to open up and trust the teacher.
Hori’s empathy makes him search for truth in possible slip-ups. He comes to sense he may not have deemed the relationship between Minato and Yori rightly and judged it according to the correct parameters. Perhaps, their proximity may have something deeper to it. The third act weighs the depth of the relationship between Minato and Yori, traversing how close they are to each other, including denials of intimacy when amidst their classmates. The classroom is full of its hectoring energy, pouncing on any flash of tenderness exchanged between pupils. The two boys, especially Minato, become sharply aware of the critical eye upon them and their rapport.
It doesn’t help that the sword of masculinity hangs close above them. While Yori is continually and oppressively reminded by his father that his tendencies are diseased, Minato assumes an unspoken truckload of expectations from his late father on how he should behave. His mother’s inadvertent words about him having to start a family in the heteronormative fold slide in as a quiet burden.
Monster (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
What happened to Minato and Yori?
Minato and Yori find refuge in the secret space tucked away behind a tunnel in an abandoned coach. The two decorate it and make it their own private world, unscathed by the glare of the adult world. “Monster” encompasses their shyness and hesitation in owning up to the relationship, even to themselves. Minato feels he can just keep the relationship for the secret space and deny it in the classroom, which only hurts Yori. The two journey through individual trajectories of realization and acceptance, weathering the brunt of imagined and real hostility. The film culminates in that tunnel itself.
A typhoon has hit. Saori and Hori call out to the boys. The film purposely keeps an ambiguous ending, flicking an image of mud-drenched Minato and Yori apparently moving into the open in a bright swathe of light and running ecstatically. The film leaves it to the viewer to make their conclusions whether they made it out alive or not. Perhaps that isn’t the parting grace of the film. It suggests that the boys have arrived at their own understanding about their bond and won’t be fazed otherwise by what others might have to say about it is the defining note.
Monster (2023) Movie Themes Explained:
Perspective, Truth & Masculinity
The director zooms in on many sides of a story, often making a rather simple, straightforward narrative convoluted, but therein lies the structurally satisfying aspect of the film. Who’s telling which aspect and how matters paramount in “Monster,” as information is dispensed and withheld in ways that gesture to misunderstandings being blown out of proportion. Truth is shifting and mutable, accounts changing according to the teller. So the ‘bully’ does what he does to halt an instance of actual bullying. Above these linger the expectation of masculinity, which makes the boys anxious about their relationship. There are too many spoken and unspoken codes in place around them, which they have to break through and forge their relationship.
Read More: Monster (2023) Movie Review: A Richly Layered, Humanist Tale that Explores the Nature of Truth
Monster (2023) Movie Trailer
Monster (2023) Movie Links: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
The Cast of Monster (2023) Movie Cast: Sakura Ando, Eita Nagayama, Soya Kurokawa
Monster (2023) Movie Genre: Drama, Thriller | Runtime: 2h 7Mins
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