For my assignment, I have chosen to work with Koreeda Hirokazu’s 2023 film – 怪物 (Monster).

I chose this film, perhaps selfishly, as it holds a poignant memory for me. During the last two years, I have been sporadically studying Japanese in order to communicate with my partner’s family better, and Monster was one of the first Japanese language films I had seen without subtitles that clicked for me. Beyond this, the films themes of innocence, nostalgia and childhood, coupled with hazy, beautiful vistas of south-of-nowhere countryside capture a similar sentiment my own personal work attempts to achieve.

The film follows Saori, worried when her son Minato begins exhibiting strange behaviours. He comes home with injuries, cuts his hair, and speaks in a cryptic manner that suggests something is occurring at school. She believes Minato’s teacher is responsible. In a three-act structure, the film retells the same events from the perspectives of the Saori, the teacher, and finally Minato himself – the narratives blending.

In approaching the sound design, I’d like mirror the ambiguous nature of the narrative, using equally as obscured sounds and ambience. I also intend to incorporate vague, incomplete hints towards motif, as the individual perspectives and narratives of the film repeat and intertwine, yet never quite match.