Monster

This might’ve been the first movie I’ve ever watched without knowing a single thing about it. It has non liner story telling, which after all about lily Chou Chou I didn’t know how I would’ve thought about it. Despite that this film uses it in such a creative way. It tells multiple stories within course of events. The first story with Minato’s mother is an almost terrifying story about the impact of teachers we only see the damage done to Minato and are only told that it is Mr Hori’s fault. Yet although we “know” it’s Mr Hori’s fault the school does absolutely nothing about it. It’s almost infuriating. Especially seeing the mental impacts on the kid, I mean his ear bleeds, he sees himself as a monster with a pig brain. But you know it’s wrong right? Well the slow pen drops when she opens his bag and finds a lighter. It’s so surreal we’ve just spent an entire first act defending this psycho! The narrative shifts to Mr hori and we aren’t fully sure he’s a nice guy but he is and it’s tragic he’s a loser who dates a hostess and has bum fish who doesn’t even swim. To top it all off he has a straight psycho in his class so the story is about the complex relationship between students and teachers where despite teachers being the authority the student has the power in the relationship the entire time. Yet we not actually know what’s happening in minato’s life until the third act. He this entire time has been defending yet bulky a boy in his class and the puzzle starts to fit together he cut his hair because he was scared of the feelings inside of him that were awakened when Yori showed him love. He was covering for Yori when he burned down the hostess club because that was what made his dad abuse him.  Childhood is such a complex part of life that is seen in such black and white colours from parents despite it really being technicolour. It’s easy for adults to suggest that children are “pig brained” or “Monsters” because of the complexity of what seems like a carefree world and life.