Sheep in the Box: Master Director Hirokazu Kore-eda Asks, ‘What is Family?’
By Alice Shih
Rating: A-
The 2018 Palme d’Or-winning director Hirokazu Kore-eda has always explored the theme of atypical families.
Witness 2018’s Shoplifters, about a gang of thieves living as a family, 2022’s Broker about selling foundlings for adoption, and 2023’s Like Father, Like Son which has two families with babies switched at birth. What constitutes a family? Clearly, bloodline might not be necessary in Kore-eda’s mind. So, what is it?
This time in Sheep in the Box, we see a couple who, after two years of grieving the accidental death of their seven-year-old son, decide to try living as a family with a humanoid boy. They are both guilt-ridden and deflecting their hurt by putting the blame on other people or circumstances.
Apart from addressing emotional trauma and healing, Kore-eda’s script chooses to raise a few immediate questions on humanity versus technology, and also to explore AI exploitation, with a twist.
The mother (Haruka Ayase) diligently waters her trees to keep her garden growing, with special care to the one planted for her dead son. However, the humanoid, played by Rimu Kuwaki, is not waterproof.
Kore-eda pinpoints the crack in this relationship through a metaphorical act. Would parents want a child who doesn’t grow up? No matter how much the robot resembles a kid in looks and in behaviour, it will never be able to grow up like a living thing.
Another key point is the humanoid’s artificial intelligence, which is programmed to upgrade on its own through its experience. Its intellectual age will “mature” knowing more about the human world its functioning in.
When the boy robot realizes that the couple could easily terminate their contract whenever they want, its own fate will be in limbo should that happen. As an artificially generated consciousness, does it deserve to have an afterlife? Do ethics apply to AI as well?
Children leave home as they come of age. What about humanoids? Would these parents support them to venture on their own quests upon “adulthood?” It seems like there are problems with humanoids whether they could grow up or not. These are all tough questions to answer in this complicated world of early-stage AI without concrete regulations.
Can an emotionally broken family be repaired by technology for grief management? The answer in this film seems positive. It does offer the couple a chance to reconnect, apologize, and to say their last goodbye, but they need to move on quickly after the fix.
This may not be Kore-eda’s best work as some audience find the shift in tone in the last third of the film too abrupt. They didn’t expect the ending would take such a turn. This surprise actually clears up the smothering air and puts the parents back on track for their lives ahead as a couple.
The title of this film comes from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The prince asks the stranded pilot to draw him a sheep, but none of the pictures presented please him. The pilot ended up drawing a box and told the prince the sheep is inside, and the prince is delighted.
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
Mother and robot son communicate by touching the heart, “What I can’t see, I imagine.” Does that suggest artificial intelligence might have a spiritual component? Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” may not apply only for living species. Maybe mankind shouldn’t produce AI robots unless they could respect or address their created consciousness.
The most beautiful thing in this film needs to be felt with the heart through Kore-eda’s augmented visuals, sound, and use of metaphors. It seems like love is the one element that could tie a family together in the director’s films.
Family members don’t have to stem from the same genes, the same race, same species or even the same living beings. As long as there’s love and respect between the intellectual beings, humanity exists and we can consider them a family. Kore-eda’s messages are always thought-provoking, emotional, genuinely and authentic.
Sheep in the Box. Written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Starring Haruka Ayase, Daigo Yamamoto, and Rimu Kuwaki. In theatres July 31.