Monster, the seventh entry in the Cannes competition by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda, received a six-minute standing ovation Wednesday in the Grand Theatre Lumiere. For Shoplifters in 2018, he won the Palme d’Or. Might he at any point rehash it?
Kore-Eda talked in Japanese: “Thank you. Some people couldn’t be here. 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.”
In total, it is the filmmaker’s ninth film at the festival, with two of them appearing in Un Certain Regard. Since his debut feature Maborosi in 1995, Monster is his first film for which he has not received a screenplay credit.
Monster is about a take-no-prisoners widowed mother named Saori (Ando Sakura) who is now raising her son Minato (Kurokawa Soya), who is going through difficult times at his elementary school. Mom learns that her son’s strange behavior may be related to his teacher, Minato claims has hit him. The pic is told in Rashoman style according to a few unique perspectives, including that of the educator, Hori (Nagayama Eita), Minato and his companion Yori (Hiiragi Hinata).
Monster, according to Pete Hammond’s review from tonight, is “a film that wraps itself in secrets and lies, the truth landing in gray areas depending on who has the focus at any given moment. Family, as it often does in Kore-Eda’s films, plays a big part here as well as the lasting effects of grief and the divisions and walls we build for ourselves.”
Additionally, Monster represents the final film composed by Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Last year at Cannes, Kore-Eda won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury for Broker, a second family drama about people who find homes for abandoned children. For his 2013 novel Like Father, Like Son, which also received the Ecumenical Jury Prize, he was awarded the Jury Prize.