Hirokazu Kore-eda’s road move about two brokers who seek new families for orphans and a mother and baby hiding from the mafia. The film was shown in the main program of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.
Young Korean So-young leaves her son at a baby box at a church. This has not gone unnoticed, since her every move is bring watched by two policemen who are investigating the illegal sale of babies. The baby is collected by part-time church workers Ha Sang-hyeon, a laundry owner, and Dong-soo, who himself was orphaned at an early age. They want to find a new family for the baby and be paid for it, but are joined by So-young, who has returned to the son she abandoned.
This tragic story about rejecting a child and losing one’s parents involves the motif of forgiveness, unconditional kindness, and benefactors. Brokers has numerous plot lines that reveal the story of the characters on screen, who in one way or another are linked to the fate of the abandoned baby. Kore-eda maintains an air of unpredictability, gradually revealing these stories based around the tragedies and burdens of human life, which, according to the director, deserve empathy and support. The mother who gives up her child for adoption thinks that such a life will be better, and, unexpectedly, the people organizing illegal adoptions help her to find good parents for her son. The ethics of Kore-eda’s films —Broker, Nobody Knows (2004), and Shoplifters (2018) — is very like that of the Leningrad school and the calm and penetrating work of Ilya Averbakh and Dinara Asanova. The link to these films can be found in the theme of family relationships that avoid simplification and are often closely connected to social tragedies. Single mothers, abandoned children, and young people who have got caught up in the criminal world are not only seeking their own path but also asking questions about their family history and the personal connections that have largely shaped their lives. Simultaneously, they find each other and come together in new unions that are alternatives to classical family relationships.
The film will be shown in Korean with Russian subtitles.
Broker
Director Hirokazu Kore-eda
South Korea, 2022. 129 min.
16+