(by Francesco Gallo)
"We should not be afraid of artificial intelligence: even if it managed to make better films than mine, I certainly won't stop being a director for that reason. Another example? Even if it beat everyone at Chinese checkers, I will always love rooting for two human champions of this game facing each other." So says Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, who directed 'Sheep in the Box', a film already in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and in cinemas from August 27, distributed by Lucky Red and Bim Distribuzione.
At the center of the story is once again the beloved family, the protagonist of so many of his works, made up this time of a wealthy couple, Otone (Ayase Haruka) and Kensuke Komoto (Daigo), who recently lost their seven-year-old son. The two agree to welcome into their home an android identical to the dead child who, thanks to AI, has been regenerated with all available data: voice, memories, character and habits. In short, a true clone of Kakeru. But can the latter truly be loved? The father, who runs a construction company, initially cannot stand him at all ("don't call me dad," he tells him irritably when Kakeru attempts this approach), while the mother, an architect, continues to find joy simply in seeing him move around the house.
Kore-eda explains: "I drew inspiration from the so-called Chinese 'resurrection businesses', companies that use AI, avatars and vocal simulations of the deceased. In practice, they collect only the beautiful and positive things about the people who have passed away, but we all know that there aren't only beautiful things, and all of this ultimately doesn't work. Another element that drew me toward this world was an experiment in which the voice of a deceased Japanese singer was used to perform new songs. Observing these initiatives involving the deceased, I found myself wondering why they provoked such a strong sense of unease in me."
The director, who at Cannes in 2013 won the Jury Prize for 'Like Father, Like Son' and in 2018 the Palme d'Or for 'Shoplifters', continues: "It must be considered that in our culture and, generally in the East, grief is something different. For us, when a person dies they do not disappear entirely, we still feel them close. Indeed, as can also be seen in the film, we have a festival to remember the dead (Obon, ed.) during which for a few days each year it is believed that the spirits of ancestors return to the world of the living to visit their families."
The film's title recalls the famous episode of the sheep in the box from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 'The Little Prince', a sheep that cannot truly be depicted because it exists above all through imagination and emotional projection. "The thing that divides human beings and androids," Kore-eda emphasizes, "is above all the body, because they only have an artificial, mechanical one, but there is another thing that completely divides us: imagination. Humanoids are intelligent, yet there are certain things they cannot reach, they are unable to imagine. That is what Kakeru's mother discovers when she reads a picture book to his clone. Her real deceased son used to ask her questions that his avatar cannot even conceive of, and this is very sad for her."
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
