Monster

"If only some people can have it, that's not happiness. That's just nonsense. Happiness is something anyone can have." recently i've been watching a whole bunch of hirokazu kore eda movies and to be honest ive loved all of them, he's one of my favourite directors and i still can't even express my excitement for his upcoming look back adaptation as i fucking love the look back manga and anime. i don't think i truly understood this movie my first time watching, i still can't fully comprehend it even now it's so thematically beautiful and just full of metaphorical symbolism that could be analysed for years, this movie is fucking amazing. i love the symbolism of fire especially as a type of escapism/destruction type of thing and i believe it works so well in its themes of identity and self expression. then there's this use of water every so often every time rebirth is mentioned and i think that's what water is supposed to represent, them being reborn and finally being free without the pressure of ur home and school life, u can be free and express urself. i believe the symbolism of the green is used in a way to show their hidden feelings and even hope tbh. i didn't even realise how symbolic this movie was and now after noticing it's just fantastic. the themes of perspective and false assumptions are so realistic explored in this, particularly with the teacher and his entire incident with minato, which i think minato actually blamed everything on him to hide his own overwhelming feelings.  Yori: "You have an amazing talent." Minato: "Do I kick?" Yori: "You don't kick." Minato: "Do I bite and release a poison?" Yori: "When you're attacked, you let go of all your strength and give up." Minato: "That's not a talent." Yori: "You stop feeling." Minato: "Am I Hoshikawa Yori?" i had to put the names for the characters in that quote or it wouldn't make sense. what is a monster? is the monster the fear of invalidation? is it societal judgement? is it isolation? the nature of being a monster is very subjective depending on who you ask, in my opinion the true monster is us, humans. the structure of this movie is unbelievably well placed, normally a movie with 3 perspectives in 2 hours could be really badly paced but the mystery surrounding this movie just makes it so intriguing and interesting which makes u not able to take ur eyes off the screen. even tho this was my second time watching i was genuinely GLUED to the screen, i forgot so much stuff in all honesty and exploring this mystery was such a joy again. the cinematography is fantastic. the shots, especially in minatos perspective are all beautiful. so many beautiful scenes of them doing random shit in that train, then obviously that final shot. it's such a beautiful shot and it's so meaningful. the ending to this is definitely one of my favourite endings in any movie ever, the ambiguity and then the soundtrack along with that beautiful camera work all add up into this philosophically brilliant ending. the soundtrack in this aswell is also so well made, the composer died just before the movie came out (rip) and he really created a master soundtrack because this soundtrack is so good, i added so many songs to my playlist it's genuinely so calming, yet so melancholic. the acting in this, mostly from sakura ando is amazing, all the performances are just stellar but ando pulls off an amazing performance and i'm so happy she was casted, such an underrated actress. this movie has solidified itself as my favourite kore-eda movie so far and it's in my top 10 movies ever. masterpiece. amazing movie