“Sheep in the Box”: artificial intelligence as a substitute for human presence
The new feature film by Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-Eda is now in cinemas – a highly anticipated film that only partly delivers
A new film by Hirokazu Kore-Eda centred on the family: throughout his career, this great Japanese director has consistently explored the family unit as a series of bonds not necessarily based on biological ties. As in *Father and Son* or, above all, *Shoplifters* – to name just a few of his most significant works – Kore-Eda has shown how the deepest relationships arise from spending time together and from affection that transcends any blood ties, marking a clear departure from the traditional concept of family.
In her films, love and mutual care always take precedence over genetics, and these themes are also at the heart of her new feature film, which was screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and is out in our cinemas this week: “Sheep in the Box”.
Set in the near future, the film centres on a couple who have been deeply affected by the devastating loss of their son.
She is an architect; he runs a building firm – two seemingly stable circumstances, yet shattered by a void that cannot be filled. In an attempt to cope with their grief, they decide to welcome into their home a humanoid designed to be identical to their missing child. A solution intended to ease their loss that very soon turns into a complex and ambiguous experience, in which memory, affection and identity become blurred.
