07
May
Much like its protagonist, Anthony Mandler’s Monster is a film obsessed with aesthetics. Main character Steve Harmon says he makes sense of his humanity through understanding the shapes and textures of the world around him, and with an occasionally heavy hand, director Mandler similarly captures Steve’s world through a stylized lens. It’s there in the postcard perfect sunsets of a youth spent growing up in Harlem, and it’s here again in the film’s unnaturally gray, sterile courtroom scenes. But the hardness of Monster, which speaks to the very dehumanizing nature of its title, comes from where we’re first introduced to…
