• 怪物 (Monster)

6/11/23 (Sun)

Director Koreeda Hirokazu’s films are always an event, and the latest opens on the heels of its win at Cannes for best screenplay by television writer Sakamoto Yuji – the first time Koreeda has directed someone else’s work in nearly three decades. It is also noted for its music by Sakamoto Ryuichi, who was dying of the cancer that would kill him earlier this year before the film premiered. He was only able to complete two new numbers, the remainder of the score being chosen from his extensive back catalogue. Less publicized here was its Queer Palm Award, a prize given for selected works entered at Cannes, which hints at one of the underlying plot points.

The first image is a large building consumed by fire, observed from the home of the young widowed Saori and her sixth-grade son Minato. Saori has become disturbed by the eccentric behavior of her son, who has taken to abusing himself, comes home at one point with just one shoe and his water bottle full of dirt, and jumps out of a moving car. When he returns from school with an injury, he reports to his mom that he was struck by his teacher, who told the boy he had “a pig’s brain”. Saori goes angrily to the school to get to the bottom of this but is met by a wall of stone faces and rote apologies. As her son’s actions become more extreme and the school continues its robotic response, she becomes increasingly frantic.

Then, a storm hits, and the son disappears. Suddenly the scene returns to the beginning and shows the events anew, this time from the teacher’s viewpoint. The new perspective and details paint a very different picture. The fire-and-rain cycle is then repeated yet again as we revisit events from Minato’s eyes, particularly his friendship with Yori, a girlish-acting boy who is bullied by the rest of the class. Their relationship becomes the key to the film.

The obvious comparison is Rashomon, but unlike that film, the facts here are not in dispute. The problem is that not all facts are known to everyone, so that the assumptions of the characters are based in all cases on an incomplete understanding, especially of Minato’s mental state. The story becomes a jigsaw puzzle where each new detail fills in the picture. Images and incidents repeat themselves in different ways, such as the sound of the instruments coming from the classroom. Rumors that may or may not be true, such as that the teacher frequented the girl’s bar that went up in smoke or that the school principal rather than her husband (who was jailed) may herself have run over and killed her child, are a further complication. Small points – e.g., Saori’s repeated hopes that Minato get married and have children, the overbearing behavior of Yori’s macho father, the teacher’s innocent remarks to the male students to behave like a man – only become meaningful at the end when we have all the information at hand. No one is the monster that they seem to be in the eyes of others once we understand their situations.

It is a clever construction, though the mechanics of the plot, such as the withholding of key information, can get tiresome. In particular, we learn at the end that one vital detail was entirely untrue, undermining everything, though the lie is understandable in context. In addition, the shift in viewpoints means that Saori, whose story at the beginning was so compelling, virtually disappears thereafter. I would have appreciated more balance.

Moreover, some bits seem extraneous, like the girl who first tells the teacher that she spotted Yori burning a dead cat, only to deny later ever having said that; or the principal surreptitiously tripping an unruly kid in a shop. I’m not even sure that the part about the principal’s responsibility in her child’s death is really needed; it reinforces the film’s theme but is peripheral to the main story. Some key questions are also left unanswered, like just who set the fire. The most obvious candidate would seem to be Yori, who’s seen running off with a lighter and has already burned a dead cat (so as to allow it to reincarnate). One friend suggested that he may have wanted to burn the girly bar and kill his father inside so that he could reincarnate as something else, but there’s no indication in the script that the father ever visited the bar. In the end, whether the fire is even related to the story is unclear. The film was reportedly supposed to be closer to three hours, and maybe these parts were leftover tidbits when the running time was trimmed to its present two hours.

Minato’s romantic awakening is beautifully presented, though I’m not sure if a child of that age can truly understand what’s happening. The kids imply that they’re getting erections (which is why I’m assuming they’re sixth graders or 12-year-olds), but do they even associate that with sex or romance? Still, they will have certainly been exposed to gender expectations in the taunts of their schoolmates, casual comments by Saori and others, and the entire structure of Japanese society. They would thus at least be aware that they are different in some way. Their budding relationship, sexual or otherwise, works in that sense. It is notable that the feminine Yori is bolder and more self-confident than the more typically male-acting Minato; maybe circumstances have hardened him. It was completely believable as presented here. The ending is wonderful as they run from their isolated make-believe train world into the sunlight.

Ando Sakura, so amazing in Shoplifters, is a wonder again as Saori, especially in her dealings with the school. It’s unfortunate that her character fades away after the first round. Nagayama Eita and veteran Tanaka Yuko are first-rate as the teacher and principal. But the real standouts, in what has become a hallmark of Koreeda’s films, are the children in astonishingly understated and realistic performances. The only real dud in the cast was Kabuki actor Nakamura Shido, whose stereotyped portrayal of Yori’s bullying father needed reining in badly.

Despite its flaws, this is a touching and thoughtful film that, like so many Japanese works, refuses to put together all the pieces for us. A worthy addition to Koreeda’s oeuvre.