Winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster was one of the finalists for Japan’s International Feature Oscar selection. It was not chosen, but it is one of 2023’s finest films.
Minato (Soya Kurokawa), an adolescent boy, begins to behave erratically. His mother, Saori, (Sakura Ando from Shoplifters) discovers that Minato’s respected schoolteacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama), may be bullying him. When she demands answers, what she gets, instead, is immense frustration at the principal’s response. Meanwhile, it may be Minato who is actually bullying a fellow student, Yori (Hinata Hiragi)…or is he trying to protect him?
The exciting narrative unfolds via three different POVs (the mother, the teacher, the son), sprinkling the viewer with more information with each segment so the individuals you may see as “monsters” keeps shifting and the intricate puzzle pieces begin to fit as we get a clearer (but never complete) picture of what happened. Kore-eda, and his screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto, keep greying the areas of truth and perception, keenly commenting on our quick-to-judge-and-condemn times. And a major queer element becomes prominent within the narrative and is explored with great care and honestly.
One of Japan’s most celebrated filmmakers, Kore-eda has won numerous awards including the 2018 Palm D’Or for Shoplifters, which was also nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar. Other major film credits include, After Life (1998), Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and The Truth (2019) which starred Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche (made in the French Language).
Awards Daily had the pleasure of a zoom sit down with the master.
Monster is currently playing in theaters in NY and LA and will open wide on December 15, 2023.
