By Isabella Karmis

When we, the audience, watch a film, we are watching a story presented to us as it is presented to us. When we experience a film, we are experiencing ideas, themes, and stories that are told through a designed and constructed image. In the typical viewing experience, the audience finds themselves submerged in the presented narration, without often imagining the multitude of other pathways that exist for the story and characters, and the experiences that each character has undergone that shape them as their own person. We tend not to be privileged to the experience of the ‘full picture’ thus the audience finds themselves harbouring emotions they were engineered to hold against other characters. We become monsters to the story, judgmental and defensive, despite ironically, being removed.

In conversations of empathy, people often talk about ‘the power of perspective’: how to attempt to even begin to understand another person, you must acknowledge the impact of their experiences. It is not an understatement to say that Monster (dir. Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan, 2023) has changed not only my world view, but my understanding of what it means to truly be empathetic and kind to others. If you were to search for Monster on the internet, the little blurb that appears to describe the film reads of a mother demanding answers from her son’s elementary school when he begins acting strangely, her search becoming more difficult after a fight breaks out at the school. I can assure you that in truth, this is hardly what the film is about, and that this misleading blurb is intentional and essential to the film’s message.

My first experience with Monster was through an airplane television. I knew that it was the winner of the Best Screenplay at Cannes 2023, which at the time occurred merely two months prior, and I was curious. I was immediately captivated. The film opens with a fire burning down the hostess bar in a small Japanese town. Minato and his mother, Saori, watch the destruction from their balcony, Minato’s mother pulling him from climbing too high on the balcony. Minato asks his mother “If a human gets a pig’s brain transplanted, is it a human or a pig?” to which she replies, “That’s not a human being”, blaming Mr. Hori, his teacher, for teaching children such odd things. Cheering for the firefighters to stop the fire, Minato tugs on his mother to not fall off. In retrospect, this scene foreshadows the entire film.

The first forty minutes of the film show Saori’s plight to understand why her son’s behaviour has abruptly turned so strange – why he is suddenly throwing himself out of cars, cutting his hair, and playing in caves and railcars. Relations with the staff of Minato’s school grow tense, upon learning that Hori has hit him and called him names. A storm hits the town, and when Saori checks on him, the audience sees horror on her face as she moves closer to the open window of his empty bedroom, the camera panning to cards flying off Minato’s desk. The focused card reads “Monster”. Suddenly the screen goes black, and the audience is taken back to the scene of the fire. The scene no longer focuses on where Minato and Saori were during the fire, but on Hori and his girlfriend.

I don’t frequently have sheer eureka moments, but sitting on that plane, halfway through a twelve-hour flight, my groggy mind clicked. I was the monster. I am who this movie is about. Monsters judge, discriminate, and hate without true cause and without true transparency. I wouldn’t say I discriminated and hated Hori and the staff, but I certainly judged after believing what they had done to Minato. But that was the issue. I was so enthralled by Saori’s perspective, I had not paused to question the perspectives and motives of the other characters. And the more I saw Hori’s perspective, the more my bias was broken.

The film continues in this pattern: after Hori, we see Principal Fushimi, and then finally Minato. With each perspective, another piece to the completed puzzle comes to light: each character in the film can be interpreted as a monster themselves. Saori believes that Hori and the staff at Minato’s school are monsters in the way they treated her son. Hori believes that Minato is a monster in the lies he has created about him, which destroyed his career and drove him to nearly hurt himself. Principal Fushimi views herself as a monster, lost in self-loathing over accidentally killing her granddaughter with her car, and watching her husband take the blame. Minato may appear to bully and view his classmate Yori as a monster, but he truthfully sees himself as the real monster, his disgust towards Yori manifesting as disgust for himself.

The film’s central question is the same one Minato asks his mother during the fire, “if a human gets a pig’s brain transplanted, is it a human or a pig?”. Through each perspective, the film follows the budding friendship between classmates Minato and Yori. Yet they come to realize that their relationship is deeper than platonic: they love one another in a society that does not necessarily welcome their bond. Despite his constant smiles and positivity, Yori suffers physical and mental abuse from his father. When Hori goes to confront Yori’s father, his father immediately insinuates to Hori that Yori is a monster with a pig brain instead of a human brain, and that he holds plans to turn him back into a human, all to which Hori stands in shock and disgust. It is now evident to the audience where the question of a brain transplant originated. Yet with a single perspective comes miscommunication and bias. Yori confides to Minato that his father believes he has a pig brain because of his character. The more Minato realizes he has romantic feelings for Yori, the more he realizes he must also ‘not be right’ and have the brain of a pig. He begins to question his humanity. When he approaches his mother with the question during the fire, her immediate response is that that he would no longer be human. Minato now has his answer. When asked why that question, he blames Hori, an outlet he believes will not be questioned. The mother first protected her son from falling off the balcony, just as she fought to protect him in her perspective. After his question, we see Minato prevent his mother from falling off the railing: his way of protecting her throughout his entire perspective. Minato is embarrassed of his feelings because of his fear of disappointing his widowed mother. He jumps out of the car when his mother confesses she can rest peacefully when Minato is married with an ‘ordinary family’, cuts his hair after Yori played with it, and plays in the caves and the railcar because that is where he is truly free. The mother and son watch as the hostess bar, something their society also rejects, continues to burn. Yet the forgotten piece is Saori’s cheers as the firefighters work to relinquish the fire, fighting to protect something disgraced by society. Saori loved her son regardless of everything, racing past firefighters to try and reach Minato despite the mudslide. Yet, Minato was so blinded by his own self-judgements that he could not see that love.

And yet, Koreeda shows us that monsters can be redeemed. Unbeknownst to them, while Hori is contemplating his life on the school roof, Minato and Fushimi find solace confessing to one another that they both told lies: Minato over Hori, and Fushimi with her husband taking the public blame. For a moment, Fushimi is no longer a grieving shell, a woman who cannot function without a script; a monster unable to face humanity. Minato and Fushimi find mutual comfort in music, no longer as the murderous principal and the ‘problematic’ gay boy, but as a music teacher and a student. Principal Fushimi is the only one Minato admits to that he loves someone he cannot love, and instead of judging him, as a monster would, she assures him that “If only some people can have it, that's not happiness”, that love is love, regardless of anything. They return to their instruments and continue to blow their sorrows away, the music drifting to the roof, to Hori. Minato symbolically undoes his wrongs to him by inadvertently saving Hori from jumping. The ‘monster’ boy thus saves his teacher, with the ‘monster’ principal helping Minato. Ultimately, through code Hori realizes the true nature of Minato and Yori’s relationship, his judgements immediately dissipating. After racing to Saori and explaining the uncovered truth, her judgements also fade. Their biases and miscommunications are not a true reflection of themselves, but their love and concern for Minato and Yori are.

While the scene of Minato and Saori watching the fire defines the perspective struggle throughout the film, I believe that the most essential scene to the film’s message is the final scene. The last image shows Minato and Yori after the storm, celebrating their freedom, running first through a blinding light, then through lush, green nature. And finally, looking close enough, the audience sees that the gate that had once blocked one of the rail tunnels by their railcar, ‘the end of the line’ is now gone. Earlier in the film, one visual from Minato’s perspective saw the boys climb up into a decorated bird cage that overlooks the town; the missing gate here alludes to the possibility of the boy’s freedom from the restraints of their past, moving beyond the end of the line. Are the boys alive, or are they dead from the storm’s mudslide? Is the missing gate a sign of freedom, or damage from the storm? Their comments about seeing if the railcar will take off, and their drearier struggle and cries suggest that they might have passed. One of the most overlooked assets of the scene is Minato’s self-acceptance. The first time he took a snack from Yori in the school, the snack fell, and while picking up the fallen pieces, Minato asked for Yori to not speak to him, disgusted and ashamed of himself during the initial incident. Now, he happily finishes the snack Yori gives him in one sitting, no longer ashamed. When the boys emerge, Yori asks if they are reborn. Minato thinks not, since they are still the same inside. The truth is, no matter if they were reborn or had stayed as Minato and Yori, their souls and love could never have changed. The only change is that they are no longer weighed down by societal expectations and can run freely and happily in the wild, as just what they are: children. Koreeda paints that a person may judge someone without knowing or understanding them, but those judgements cannot be eradicated by death: if Minato and Yori are dead, their society must live in regret.

Monster is truly one of the films that I could write about forever. Every time I rewatch, I find small details that I missed before. It is the film I immediately recommend to my friends and think about each day without fail. I find a bittersweet comfort in believing Minato and Yori are finally free. Sometimes I like to think that Saori and Hori reached the boys in time, that the children knew at least two people didn’t view them as monsters, but simply as ten-year-old boys. However, I believe that the greater message of the film is dependent on society’s regret and reflection. Minato and Yori might be characters, but the struggles they faced, are true for children around the world. But ultimately, you must decide the ending for yourself, if muddled perspectives and miscommunication are monster hunters and silent killers.