The Clouded Judgment Unravels Itself: Of Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster (2003)

Nominated for more than 40 awards and winning 9 awards in international film awards, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster (2003) examines the frameworks of societal pressures, conformity, misunderstanding, and clouded judgment from the perspectives of the film’s characters. The story unravels itself in different apprehensions and conceptions through four of the major characters which can be arrayed as Saori—Minato’s single mother—, Mr. Hori—the school teacher—, Yori, and Minato respectively. The primary façade plot had the presumption that Minato had been negatively influenced, punished, and abused by his fifth-grade school teacher Mr. Hori and that Minato’s mother, Saori, was seeking judgment from the school board pertaining to the presupposed negative influence and queer change in Minato’s behavior. In the film, the pursuit of truth and reality is perpetuated by these aforementioned characters, gradually painting a veracious picture.

From the perspective of the mother, there is something seriously wrong with her son Minato, highly possible because of the influence he is transmitted by Mr. Hori. The judgment of Minato is inordinately stacked against Mr. Hori because of the several rumors that she has heard from time and time which clouds her judgment and represents the furthest place away from the truth in this film. This is juxtaposed to a great extent through the secret and reticent nature of her son, who makes his mother demonstrate convoluted levels of paranoia and a sense of overprotection toward the child—as she is a single mother with his husband dead. This notion is further reinforced in one specific scene in the film in which the students yell “eel-keeper” to Saori. This is a subtle metaphor by Kore-eda due to the fact that similar to trying to maintain eels, Saori is trying to comb her way through a complex and uncontrollable situation, which is looking out her last iota of alive kin in a world of danger and deceit.

All in all, Kore-eda simply manipulates and disorients the audience throughout the runtime of the film by superadding previously non-existent elements and implicitly stating that we should not show hastiness to reach a conclusion. It is also about the outside pressure from the world that everyone has been, at least in the smallest bit, subjected to. In the film, the dynamic and “friendship” between Minato and Yori we observe this outside pressure through the form of peer pressure and homophobia. Although it is never explicitly stated whether the people around Yori had insight into his queer tendencies, Yori is supposed to be afflicting from a disease or condition which switched his brain into a pig’s brain, hence the term “pig brain.” This is a subtle euphemism for homosexuality by Kore-eda since it emanates from Yori and his bond with Minato. Moreover, Yori is constantly bullied by his peers in the school and oftentimes Minato becomes a culprit in this bullying cogwheel, as he is influenced by the opinions of his peers as well. Lastly, it is also a story about how the kept secrets among children—although we must also not exclude the aforementioned characteristic attributes which Minato was indicating—can be seen through the eyes of adults. In the end, we come across the fact that Minato’s mother was simply exacerbating and overthinking the situation because of the withdrawn personality of Minato.