Skip to main content

The Human Element of Sheep in the Box

Though it is unusual for him, Sheep in the Box is not the first time that Hirokazu Kore-eda has dabbled in the realm of speculative fiction. His second narrative feature, After Life, entertained a curious concept on the space between life and death and the figures who ferry along souls about to rest. A little later he made Air Doll, a Pinocchio story about a sex doll that comes to life -but is much more innocent than that sounds. Sheep in the Box feels like a continuation of the themes touched on in Air Doll especially, specifically its depiction of an artificial intelligence looking for meaning in their existence.
The film it resembles much more potently though is Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence -down to having roughly the same premise as its starting point. As a science-fiction device, A.I. itself does not have the same speculative innocence that it once did, and stories about the humanity of androids or artificially intelligent beings ring just a little differently in our current age. Kore-eda’s film though, does not appear to be about our modern notion of A.I. in any shape, nor does it run defence for any approximation of an A.I. company -those avatars in this film, if they can be called that, are shown to be in their best light misguided and amoral. Instead what the film really does is explore grief through the lens of an A.I. copy of a loved one deceased.
Haruka Ayase, who had previously starred in Kore-eda's underrated Our Little Sister, plays Otone Komoto, an architect married to woodworker and baseball player Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto). They are both silently reeling from the death of their son Kakeru in a traffic accident, grieving in their own ways -Otone through tending to a tree planted in Kakeru's memory, Kensuke through repression and distraction. When they come across an offer to work with an A.I. robotics company that specializes in bringing to life robotic humanoids as replacements for loved ones lost, Otone applies for one in the image of Kakeru. This mimic child, played by Rimu Kuwaki, who requires charging each night, accurately reflects the personality of the real Kakeru while aware that he is a separate entity, and though Otone takes to him immediately, Kensuke is respectably less open.
The situation parallels Spielberg's A.I. very closely, but the drama that arises from it is much more subdued and in line with Kore-eda's own style of storytelling. The everyday contours of the Komotos life and what Kakeru's presence and evocation means for it is addressed with restraint -the existentialist and ideological notions subordinate to the intimate personal themes. It is a gentle hand that deals with the concept of replacing one’s child with a robot duplicate, something that was discussed in much more haunting and severe terms earlier this year in Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Kore-eda’s approach though is no less valid -rather than castigate the idea on its face he looks at the emotions behind the decision of parents like Otone. Importantly though the barrier between Kakeru and the Komotos’ real child is emphasized, typically by Kensuke -though Otone acknowledges it as well eventually -he was always more a symbol than an outright substitute.
Kakeru’s perspective is less centred than in other movies with this kind of a premise, but it is developed. He doesn’t have the David-like intense affection for Otone or Kensuke, doesn’t ever define himself in relation to them, and isn’t even moved by the notion he isn’t their son -Kensuke tells him explicitly to call him “Mister” rather than father, which leads to an awkward misunderstanding later with the police. Kakeru’s more interesting facet is in his relationship to other humanoid children, also replacements for loved-ones, many of whom now having been abandoned or returned by parents who learned better. There's a solemnity with which Kore-eda treats these kids -a girl left down under a bridge, a distant glimpse of their chatter through a window (reminiscent of his earlier film Nobody Knows). The emotional abandonment isn't so much the key as the purposeful one, these children aware they exist as 'zombies' of real kids and crave an existence that they themselves control. It is not A.I. revolution they seek, but the chance to live autonomously independent of the human world.
And that is an interesting notion Kore-eda puts forward, one that is modestly compelled by A.I., but wishes to see it removed from any human equation -even in the apparent contentment that is shown in the Komotos' family life, which includes also relatives such as Otone's mother played by Kimiko Yo, whose relationship to Kakeru also grows from coldness to cordiality. Kakeru more than either of his 'parents' knows that he is not the solution to their grief, comfortable stop-gap though he may be.
It is an intelligent performance from Kuwaki -and he plays the robotic elements quite well too. Though it is Ayase who really drives the movie's earnestness and gives a performance of such restrained emotionality that you can't help sympathizing with her even through her rash choices and outlook. It is a warm performance of buried trauma, and quite aptly contrasted by Yamamoto's patient cynicism. He feigns at disaffection around Kakeru, even as he develops a respectful fondness for the boy and tries to diminish the weight of loss that Kakeru's presence inflicts on him. Though he never sees Kakeru as his child resurrected, he almost perceives him as a ghost -and is deeply affected in one moment when checked over the limits of Kakeru's memories. Otone contends as well in the realization that Kakeru alone is not a solvent to her grief -in a way she still sees her tree as a greater approximation of her son.
That is why it is interesting how much Kakeru contributes to its upkeep and the unique bond he develops with trees more generally. It is an implicitly spiritual thing, as Kore-eda seems to equate these artificial lives with trees -a kind of solemn mystery, perhaps beautiful, but separate from the world of people. The reverence expressed by Kakeru and the other humanoid children is curious, reflective of something like Silent Friend though not so intense. Perhaps in trees they see a life-form less volatile than humans.
The title "Sheep in the Box" refers to a scene from The Little Prince, a favourite story of both Otone and Kakeru, in which a character failing to draw a sheep renders only a box that the sheep is ostensibly in. Kore-eda anticipates the dot his audience is likely to connect that to, but spells out his real meaning in a late sequence that lacks a certain grace. The movie in general is at times on such an awkward wavelength, blunt where it could be more subtle, opaque when greater transparency may be warranted. And Kore-eda's conclusions may be some kind of cop-out. But his gentle touch works surprisingly well with this subject matter, his humanity shines through and what stance there is supports that ethos: A.I. cannot replace a human being. A Kore-eda film perhaps more than most is emblematic of that.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Strange History of the American Spoof Movie

Parody movies have been around for a lot longer than we tend to think of them. Even from the earliest days of Hollywood there were movies meant to satirize a particular subject or genre. In the silent era, Buster Keaton was responsible for a few. And in the early sound era, almost as soon as the monster pictures took off did you see comic versions of them -Abbott and Costello hosting a few. But parody movies tended to be subtle for most of cinema history, or parody came in conjunction with another goal of the comedy. It really wasn’t until the 1980s and 90s that it took off and became popularly understood. And there is perhaps a line to be drawn to the counterculture comedy explosion that began in the 1970s through avenues like  Saturday Night Live , which frequently parodied from even its earliest years popular movies and cultural properties of the time. But that is still a way’s back. To my generation though, ‘parody movie’ is perhaps a less known term than the more blunt ‘s...
1 comment
Read more

A Stylish and Charmingly Reinvented David Copperfield

The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)  is the most important book Charles Dickens ever wrote. It is not the most famous or influential by any means (that would of course be A Christmas Carol ), but it is the book that is the purest expression of the authors’ style, identity, and worldview. It is his most personal work, semi-autobiographical in its story of the chronology from infancy to adulthood of a character who overcomes great loss and hardships to find a fulfilling life as a writer. To read David Copperfield  is to understand Dickens himself. Armando Iannucci knew this when he decided to make a new adaptation of the novel for a twenty-first century audience. He also knew that Dickens adaptations are ubiquitous at this point. Films are a bit rarer, but every few years a new television adaptation rears its head to keep the authors’ unique world an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Notes on the Title Cards of The Lord of the Rings

It might be sacrilege for one who both considers The Lord of the Rings  trilogy to be one of the greatest triumphs of cinema and has been an avid lover of the films since adolescence, to declare that the original theatrical cuts of the films are better than the much beloved extended editions. Easily it’s my most controversial opinion regarding these movies. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the extended editions quite a lot, especially as someone who just enjoys spending time in that universe. They flesh it out more, add extra flavour, and in increasing the length by about an hour really emphasize the epic quality of these films. But I find that the original cuts are generally more cleanly paced, more seamlessly edited, and much more accessible to audiences. All the stuff there is to love about The Lord of the Rings  is there in the original versions, the plethora of new and extended scenes merely add to that for fans. And of those, they fall into three camps for me: 1....
14 comments
Read more