Families are the main theme of most of the films of the Japanese master director Kore-eda Hirokazu, but these are no ordinary families. Traditional families do not work well in his films, and are never happy, as Tolstoy had observed. Conversely, groups of people brought together by fate can act as families and develop relationships of mutual empathy and tenderness even in the absence of blood kinship. The family in his films is not the more or less accidental kinship due to blood relations, but the mutual love and care of those who compose it. This also happens in ‘Broker‘, the second film that Kore-eda Hirokazu makes consecutively outside of Japan. After a European experience with ‘La vérité’, the Japanese director chose to set the action of his film released in 2022 in South Korea. If we were to describe the subject of the film in a few words, we would have to say that it is a dramatic comedy with elements of a thriller that has as topic the trafficking of abandoned children and their reselling to wealthy families that for one reason or another cannot have children. The apparently sordid theme, however, develops as a film full of empathy, in which it exposes a human universe filled with tenderness. The reason is, of course, the approach that fans of Kore-eda Hirokazu (including myself) are already familiar with. The Japanese writer and director does not judge his characters, although some of them commit moral errors, misdemeanors and even crimes that make them outlaws. He tries to discover everyone’s motives and extract from each character that part of good that will help her or him survive life’s blows.
The film begins with the scene of the abandonment of a baby in a special niche of a church building intended for such actions (apparently quite common in Korea). The child ends up in the hands of a couple of men who we could call ‘child traffickers’, but their role is more complex. They – the intermediaries or ‘brokers’ – are looking for wealthy adoptive couples who cannot have children of their own and who can provide a warm home and a secure future for the babies. The remorseful young mother returns to make sure her son is in good hands and joins the two men. A little boy of about five, also adopted, runs away from the orphanage and joins them as well. The four, with the baby in their arms, begin a road trip throughout Korea in search of suitable adoptive parents. On their trail are two policewomen who aim to catch the criminals in the act and a gang of mobsters associated with the father of the child who has been murdered. Can this super-complicated situation have a non-tragic outcome?
Kore-eda Hirokazu is one of the few screenwriters and directors today who manages to get in trouble his characters in such a way that it is difficult to see how they will get out of the situations in which they find themselves, and who manages to get them out of there not by unexpected events, coincidences or other script miracles (although these are not completely lacking) but through the inner strength of his characters. There are no 100% bad people, the Japanese master seems to say. It is worth listening to each of its heroes, it is worth discovering their motivations and inner resources, and then we will better understand their deeds. The way he directs his actors is full of empathy and attention to details. Each of the acting performances in ‘Broker‘ is memorable, but still the three lead roles stand out. The two brokers, played by Song Kang-ho and Gang Dong-won, convince us that the job they practice is not simple trafficking for mercantile purposes that uses the weakness of young women forced to abandon unwanted children, but a calling with much more altruistic motivations. After years of activity and dozens of intermediaries, they lead modest lives, one has a laundry and clothes repair shop, the other works as a volunteer in the church. The young mother is played by Ji-eun Lee – a well-known Korean pop singer, as I read, and an actress of great talent and expressiveness added to the delicate beauty. The character of the mother who experiences the tragedy of abandoning her child and is perhaps guilty of other crimes as well, convinces that what she is doing is a sacrifice, in the style of the mother characters in classical Italian neorealist films. However, the register of the story is not gloomy despite the extreme situations experienced by the characters. ‘Broker‘ is also a social comedy, with characters that viewers can identify with, funny at every step and especially a film with a human core without falling into melodrama. Recommended viewing.