To describe a film as having the ‘Rashomon effect’ refers to the 1950 psychological masterpiece ‘Rashomon’, which made famous the narrative technique of showcasing multiple contradictory interpretations or descriptions of a event to provide different perspectives or points of view of the same incident. At first I thought about describing ‘Monster’ as utilising the ‘Rashomon effect’ but as I watched on it becomes clear that rather than seeing multiple unreliable narratives/perspectives or lies from different characters, instead the film invites us to empathise with their fractured perspective by having the audience experience the story as they experience it. We start with a concerned mother noticing strange changes in her son brought about by a seemingly abusive teacher. Very quickly we see our expectations and moral judgements of good and evil, right and wrong and the motivations of characters are played like a flute by a artfully constructed narrative. With each new perspective of a character a new layer of truth is added and another layer of judgement is removed.

I was struck more and more with a building sensation of compassion and empathy as the seemingly black and white situations melt into morale grey. Human nature is to see ourselves as the central character of our world enabling us to so easily fall into the trap of thinking that what we see or think is truth. And yet we can never really fully know the truth of things, only our limited perspective. As this unfolding, twisting narrative structure gives way to greater and greater truth we are slowly confronted by a hidden love story that is quite devastating. I was reminded of my favourite film of last year the emotionally traumatising masterpiece ‘Close’ and of the brilliant psychological drama ‘The Hunt’. In the end one of the films best strengths it’s complex narrative becomes a bit of a hinderance to landing its emotional ending. By spending so much of the time uncovering a mystery, the final emotional impact though devastating could have been greater. With so many layers of building truth the ending perhaps becomes a lie that protects up from the truth. This film is oozing with narrative mastery and the acting of the young boys was so moving. It also contains a searing message that will stay with you as you leave the cinema. (I can’t really write about some of the message without spoilers) ‘Monster’ is a humanist call for us all to live with more empathy and compassion and remember that we can never know the full truth. 9/10