Mandagsfilmen: Monster

A gripping drama from master director Hirokazu Kore-Eda - Monster won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The music is composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

The award for Best Screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival went to master director Kore-Eda's latest opus, written by author and director Yuji Sakamoto. We delve into the complex world of youth, a realm Koreeda has an extraordinary ability to convey stories from.

The quiet and reserved 12-year-old Minato lives alone with his mother and is convinced that his brain has mysteriously been replaced with that of a pig. His increasingly strange behavior causes concern for his mother. She senses that something is amiss at school, and that his teacher is involved. This sets off a puzzle of a journey where we are not only involved in Minato, his mother, and the teacher's perspectives on what may have happened. But also in the world of the younger, bullied schoolboy Eri, whom Minato has a very special relationship with.

The film has the unique approach of successively conveying the same story from each character's perspective, showing how easy it is to misunderstand what really happened, and especially as parents and adults, to completely miss the reality of young people. When we reach the end of this story, all the pieces fall into place, and we see everything the adults failed to understand.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda is among Japan's greatest living filmmakers, and with films like STILL WALKING, SISTERS, SHOPLIFTERS (Palme d'Or), THE TRUTH, and MY BELOVED, he has garnered a large audience worldwide. Monster is one of his strongest films, winning both the screenplay award and the Queer Palm at this year's Cannes Film Festival. It is also the last film for which the legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the music before he passed away, and is dedicated to his memory.