Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in France, and Yuji Sakamoto, who directed Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster”, won the Best Screenplay Award. This is the fifth time that Kore-eda’s work has won the Palme d’Or, which was the highest award for “Shoplifters” in 2018. This time is of course auspicious, but I would like to note that this work is a painful reflection of reality. .
One of the keys to the synopsis of “Monster” released on the 2nd is “corporal punishment” at school. The focus of the work is whether it actually happened, but this work would not have been possible if there had been no corporal punishment in schools and homes in this country.
Many children lose their lives because of the violence of adults who are supposed to protect and raise them. It is important to bear in mind that this film is based on the current situation where corporal punishment cannot be eradicated.
The film also explores the disconnect between people over accusations of corporal punishment. It takes advantage of the fact that people tend to believe only the information they want to believe and reject information that is inconvenient.
It is the spread of the Internet that encourages such trends in modern society. While people have more material to judge things than ever before, they are also bombarded with unverified information.
Even in the United States, which was previously seen as a “model of democracy,” Mr. Trump claimed that “the election results were stolen.” The unbelievable incident in which people took it upon themselves to attack the Federal Capitol is still fresh in our memory.
Confusion over information overload and people’s disconnection is occurring not only in the United States, but also in Japan and other countries around the world. The movie “Monster” is a serious question from a filmmaker deeply concerned about that reality, and the response from a filmmaker who sympathized with that was probably the award this time. This is the reason why I can’t just let go of my joy and say, “A feat of Japanese people!” like the Olympics or something.
In both the East and West, monsters have long served to tell humans something. The English word “monster” is derived from the Latin word for “warning.”
A warning given to us by the movie “Monster”. First of all, I want to carefully appreciate the work and think about it.
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