If you’ve ever had to explain to your mother why there’s a random cut over your right ear, or why you suddenly want to know if a person with a pig-brain transplant is still technically human, you already know the vibe of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s masterfully subdued 2023 Japanese drama, Monster. At first glance, we seem to be trapped in a standard, nail-biting middle-school thriller about a troubled, potentially dangerous pre-teen named Minato and his apparently abusive homeroom teacher, Mr. Hori. Minato’s fiercely protective single mom, Saori, marches straight into the school demanding answers, only to be met by a wall of disturbingly robotic, bowing faculty members and an unnervingly indifferent principal, Makiko Fushimi.
Just when you think you’ve mapped out exactly who the villain is, the film does something marvelous : it pulls a cinematic Rashomon, doubling back to retell the same events from the teacher’s and then the children's perspective. It meticulously peels back layers like an onion, leaving your eyes watering and your moral compass spinning wildly in the wind.
Monster is an absolute triumph of delicate storytelling. Scripted by the celebrated Japanese TV writer Yuji Sakamoto, the film took home the prestigious Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival.
The central question chanting like a slow-breaking raincloud over the film is simple: “Who’s the monster?”
As Christians, we love a tidy narrative. We like our villains properly labeled and our heroes neatly haloed. But Monster denies us that luxury. Instead, it holds up a mirror to a deep theological reality: the battlefield between good and evil isn't out there in the world, it is mapped directly across the human heart.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus gives us a foundational piece of spiritual psychology: "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luke 6:45)
We see this play out visually in one of the film's standout, slightly wacky, yet deeply exposing scenes. Mr. Hori is introduced blowing his nose loudly and making vaguely insinuating comments about Saori. He looks like an absolute creep. Later, we watch the principal, Fushimi, remain unyielding and cold to a desperate mother's tears. Our immediate instinct is to excommunicate them from our sympathies.
Yet, as the layers peel back, we practice what Catholic tradition calls Ignatian discernment, the art of looking beneath the surface movements of our desires, fears, and prejudices to see where the Holy Spirit is moving, and where the enemy is trying to isolate us.
We discover that Hori is actually a well-meaning educator caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare of institutional face-saving. We learn that within us, from the moment we start growing, there is a complex interior landscape where both light and shadow are developing simultaneously. The real "monster" isn't a person; it is the fear of the other that we construct as a safety mechanism, forcing us to misread and dehumanize those around us.
There is a profound moment in the film where Minato and Yori seek refuge in an abandoned, overgrown railway carriage, their own makeshift Eden away from the immense shadow of their adult guardians. Here, free from the toxicity and hostile expectations of the outside world, their relationship flourishes into something pure and full of longing for freedom.
It beautifully mirrors our own spiritual journey. We are born with an innate capacity for divine relationship, but as we grow, the world forces us to hide what we are experiencing. We develop coping mechanisms. We begin to harbor both grace and malice. Like the famous Christian parable of the two wolves fighting inside us, the question of our sanctification always comes down to: Which one are we feeding? Or worse, which one is society forcing us to feed?
Saori wasn't a villain for attacking the school; she was a mother operating on partial, broken truths. The school staff weren't inherently malicious; they were cogs in a conservative, protective machine. Everyone was struggling in private, trying to find meaning in how they looked at and cared for one another, yet constantly missing the mark.
By the time the third act transitions into a straight shot toward its abstract, beautifully hopeful ending, the film surgically extracts our judgmental distance. It reminds us that we cannot genuinely love a neighbor we refuse to fully understand.
When the final notes of Sakamoto’s piano fade out, we are left with a heavy, holy weight in our chests. If Christ’s primary commandment is to love one another as He loved us, we have to start by clearing out the monsters of suspicion we build in our own minds.
To lead a more meaningful life, ask yourself: Whom have I prematurely labeled a "monster" in my own life simply because I haven't taken the time to sit through the retelling of their perspective?
