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Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s seventh film in competition in Cannes, Monster, received a six-minute standing ovation at the Grand Theater Lumiere on Wednesday. In 2018 he won the Palme d’Or for “Shoplifters”. Can he do it again?
Kore-Eda spoke in Japanese, “Thank you. Some people couldn’t be here. I can’t wait to go back to Japan and show them the film. Tell them about this absolutely wonderful premiere. It will stay in my heart.”
It is the filmmaker’s ninth film overall at the festival (with two having appeared in Un Certain Regard). Monster is his first unscripted film since his 1995 feature debut Maborosi.
Monster is about Saori (Ando Sakura), a widowed mother who doesn’t want to take prisoners and is now raising her son Minato (Kurokawa Soya), who is going through hard times in his elementary school. Mom learns that her son’s strange behavior may have something to do with his teacher, who Minato says beat him. The picture is narrated in Rashoman style from different points of view, including that of the teacher Hori (Nagayama Eita), Minato and his friend Yori (Hiiragi Hinata).
In today’s review from Pete Hammond, “Monster” is “a film that shrouds itself in mystery and lies, with the truth ending up in gray areas depending on who’s in the spotlight.” The family is at play here, like so often in Kore-Eda’s films, a big part, as are the lasting effects of grief and the divisions and walls we build for ourselves.”
Monster is also the final film by the late Academy Award-winning film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
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Kore-Eda won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes last year for another family drama, Broker, about abandoned babies and those who find homes for them. He won the 2013 Jury Prize for Like Father, Like Son, which also won the Ecumenical Jury Prize.