Our amazing writer Paul Gratton takes a look at Sheep In The Box, the latest movie from legendary filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda.
About: Set in the near future, Otone Komoto works as an architect. She is married to Kensuke Komoto, who runs a construction company. The married couple decide to welcome a humanoid robot into their home as their son.
Reaction: Sheep in the Box refers to a passage in Antoine de St-Exupéry’s classic fable The Little Prince, wherein our author gets tired of drawing flawed sheep and reverts to simply outlining a box with breathing holes. Where is the sheep? In the box, is the answer, the first example of how “what is essential is invisible”, the key theme of this tiny but immensely influential little tale. This is a story told by two grieving parents to a little robot boy, an exact clone of their tragically lost child, who they bring into their home to fill the void left by their absent beloved. Other than the fact that he cannot eat and can’t be immersed in water, he is an exact duplicate, not only obedient but with a precise level of intelligence appropriate for the age he is programmed to be (around eight, in this case). Mom takes to him immediately, but the Father is much more weary, holding in guilt over the circumstances surrounding his real son’s death. Grandma is appalled however, but she admits to not liking children anyway. Kore-eda has always been interested in the dynamics of unusual families, and the impact of memory and death on people who make their way through often dreamlike and unusual circumstances.
His masterpiece, After-Life (1998) was a thoughtful film about a way-station following death in which souls had one week to choose one memory that they wanted to take with them before moving on into their afterlife. In Shoplifters, (2018), it was a family of sociopathic thieves who lived on the margins of society, but nevertheless had strong family bonds and much love and loyalty between them until events occur that throw their fully functioning outsider world into disarray. Air Doll (2018) was about a blow up doll who comes to life but falls in love with a video store clerk. So you can see how many of the themes and obsessions in Kore-eda’s work come together in Sheep in the Box, which played in this year’s Cannes Film Festival. But the film feels rather listless and banal, possibly because the director refuses to judge his characters in any way. He just observes them trying to use AI as a way of dealing with grief, but the film cries out for a stronger point of view on the interesting elements that the story just seems to touch on in passing . And the circumstances surrounding the termination of the contract over the robot boy’s ownership is unconvincing and fails to deliver the inspirational conclusion that is is clearly aiming for. This is more of a thematic remix of Kore-eda’s greatest hits than an exciting new entry in this intriguing auteur’s very original filmography.
Rating: 5 out of 10
