This time I bring you a movie by Japanese director Toshiaki Toyoda, who usually is responsible for not only the direction but also the argument of his movies, filling them with a more personal and original touch.
Monsters Club (2012) begins with some images of a forest somewhere hidden between the snow covered mountains, giving an idea of loneliness and isolation. The background music takes us to another time, slow and melancholic, accompanying the camera movements as we enter a small cabin where a man delicately works on something that appears to be a homemade bomb. An unusual sequence shows us the bomb being sent by mail to a Chairman of some Japanese enterprise.
Ryoichi Kakiuchi (Eita) is a man who decided to isolate himself from Society so he could feel truly free, escaping the limitations imposed by our System. A World where no one is free, always being dependent on someone else, on their decisions and wills. A World where the worker is a slave and the Boss doesn't possess any autonomy.
Ryoichi's days run smoothly until the day he begins to be visited by a Shinigami (a Death God or Death Angel), who ends up making the protagonist send the Emperor is true feelings about the World plus a threat of more persuasive means in case of a negative answer.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Ryoichi's brothers begin to pop-up in a way that almost recalls the spirits from a Christmas Carol. The first visit is made by his younger brother (killed in a motorcycle accident) who speaks of how much Ryo has changed since the Past. Sometime later, his sister (only relative who's still alive) shows up to tell she's going to start working soon and that Ryo should take easy on himself. Last, his older brother (who committed suicide after their father's death) tries to convince Ryo to let it all go and join the family on the other side, his true Future.
After a long and hard conversation with his older brother inside a too realistic dream, Ryoichi seems like being in some kind of trance, painting is face with the same colors we see in the Shinigami, leaving the idea that perhaps the Shinigami was a reflection of the monster living inside our main character, always between confusion and desperation. He doesn't know who he really is, he has lost his identity.
In the next day, Ryo opens the box destined to the Emperor and switches his texts for a Kenji Miyazawa's goodbye poem. With his face still painted, Ryo goes to the city. After a goodbye call to his sister, he prepares to finally free himself, in a truly amazing sequence which makes us, audience, reevaluate our own existence.
I must also note that by the end of the movie we understand that the four brothers hold different visions of freedom. Kenta (the younger brother, interpreted by KenKen) could feel so free that he lived on the extreme, dying because of an irresponsible driving. Mikana (Mayuu Kusakari) is sick of being dependent of her father's heritage, desiring to have a proper job that could give her monetary freedom. Finally, Yuki (Yosuke Kubozuka) realizes the only way to be truly free is by entering the other World, committing suicide. Actually, is Yuki who Ryo tries to copy the most, deciding to live in the same cabin and (metaphorically speaking) during the Winter (the name yuki means snow).
Speaking about the Photography, Toyotaro Shigemori opts for a dark image inside the cabin, giving the idea of monstrosity and mental confusion. This is a place where bombs are created and a place which is visited by spirits and Shinigamis. On the outside, we see death: snow and darkness, where the only life existing (taking the form of a deer) is killed without hesitation. We only have light in the scenes with Mikana, omen of a simple and bright Future (she's also the only character who wears colored clothes).
Monsters Club makes us rethink who we really are, who we really wanna be. Which is the true definition of freedom? Does it really exist? A movie that premiered in nine Cinema Festivals, among them the famous Toronto International Film Festival.
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