MONSTER

The Quicksilver Nature of “Truth”

Venue: Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills, Hibiya, Shinjuku
June 30 (Fri), 2023–
Official website: gaga.ne.jp/kaibutsu-movie/
Theater website: hlo.tohotheater.jp/net/schedule/009/TNPI2000J01.do
Theater website: hlo.tohotheater.jp/net/schedule/081/TNPI2000J01.do
Theater website: hlo.tohotheater.jp/net/schedule/076/TNPI2000J01.do

Talk event: The director will talk at Toho Cinemas Roppongi on July 6. See Toho site for details.

Title: 怪物 (Kaibutsu)
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda (是枝裕和)
Duration: 126 min

After decades of making unforgettable films and winning awards around the world — including the Palme d’Or for best film at that Cannes Film Festival (for Shoplifters, 2018) — Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest award winner will be screening with English subtitles for international audiences. This marks a first for Kore-eda films in Japan, and we hope that you and everyone you know will hightail it to Toho theaters to take advantage of this gift.

Kore-eda’s new film, Monster, had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in May, where it competed for the Palme d'Or but came home instead with the Queer Palm and the Best Screenplay award for Yuji Sakamoto. What makes that latter award unusual is that this marks the first time Kore-eda has directed a film he did not write himself since his debut narrative feature, Maborosi (1995).

Perhaps because it’s not his script, and written by Sakamoto, who’s an ultra-popular TV writer, the film feels like it moves much more briskly than most of Kore-eda’s work, and the dialogue is sharper. The story itself, however, feels very much like a tale the acclaimed director would tell.

Monster stars the always incomparable Sakura Ando (Shoplifters) as a mother who begins noticing disturbing changes in her young son's behavior, and discovers that a teacher (Eita Nagayama, suitably creepy) has been bullying him. She storms the school, imagining the worst, demanding to know why the teacher isn’t being punished. She’s met with excuses, and from the principal, ice-cold stonewalling.

And then the film suddenly shifts and we see the same scenes from the teacher’s point of view… and we realize that the truth may not be what it seems. And finally, we shift again to the son’s point of view, and the Rashomon effect gradually reveals what has been happening all along.

The soundtrack is by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, which adds extra pathos to this very moving film.

Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills

 

 

 

Toho Cinemas Hibiya Screen #12

 

 

 

Toho Cinemas Shinjuku