By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS, Rafu Arts & Entertainment
Hirokazu Kore-eda has become one of Japan’s most celebrated modern film directors, largely on the strength of his humanistic touch, particularly when working with children.
With features including “Nobody Knows,” “Like Father, Like Son” and “After the Storm,” the 61-year-old director is a master of bypassing sensational or predictable narrative tropes in favor of contemplative emotion, without sacrificing impact.
With that resume, the title of his latest film might seem like a contradiction.
“Monster” (Japanese title: “Kaibutsu”) begins with a mother and son watching from their apartment balcony as a fire engulfs a nearby seedy hostess bar. What soon unfolds appears at first to be a straightforward drama about completely unacceptable behavior
by adults at a local school. As the film’s viewpoint switches between characters, layers are peeled away and a deeper understanding of the events begins to take shape, not unlike Akira Kurosawa’s truth-bending classic “Rashomon.”
Sakura Ando, who earned worldwide praise for her breakout role in Kore-eda’s 2018 hit “Shoplifters,” plays Saori Mugino, a single mom whose son returns from elementary school one day bearing signs of being bullied. She confronts the school’s administration, only to have her concerns seemingly brushed aside.
The ugliness of what is assumed – by viewers as well any character in the film – is where the monstrous presumptions gain a foothold.
“It’s very difficult, but I look at this film not from a logical point of view, but more from an emotionally based point of view,” Ando told The Rafu. “I see all the characters in this film as people who are loved, and are lovable, and who are valued always. They are all very important and lovable.”
“Monster” hints at some of the worst in human behavior – abuse, ostracism, homophobia, irreconcilable guilt, and more – but eventually has a more sensible message that is being obscured by preconceived attitudes.
“There is no monster in this film,” Ando said. “When I first saw the film, I didn’t see a monster. It did not exist. But the human imagination can be both beautiful and horrifying. I saw that as something like a subject that needs to be considered and examined further.”
Kore-eda worked for the first time with Yuji Sakamoto, who won the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for “Monster.”
“The story portrays an incident involving children at a small school in a small regional city in Japan and the small sparks of fire that create a huge rift and divide among the people who live there,” the director wrote. “It was before the world was turned upside down by the COVID pandemic, but I’m surprised that the story turned out to reflect the rift we now see between people, countries and ethnic groups around the world.”
Ando said her approach to the role in “Monsters” was unlike the environment in her previous work with Kore-eda.
“‘Shoplifters’ was filmed and created in a very different form; we were kind of going with the flow, adjusting as necessary as the process evolved. The ‘Monsters’ screenplay was written by Mr. Sakamoto, so that’s what we had to work with. You have to adjust to every creator’s vision and tone, and it’s a matter of adjusting to each project. That’s the way it should be.”
Asked if she has any “dream roles” – maybe playing a superhero in a Marvel blockbuster, for example – Ando said while she often dreamed of the big parts, her goal is to tackle a wide variety of roles and to have many different experiences.
“Although I try to keep in good ‘Spider-Man’ physical shape,” she joked.
“Monster” will open in New York on Nov. 22 and Los Angeles on Dec. 1, and will then go into wider release.