Kore-eda’s Broker

If you peruse the list of past Cannes Ecumenical Jury Award winners, some of them might look a little forced. The truth is it can be tough to find films that express the experiences and concerns of the Christian communities of faith in major film fests, but Japanes auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest film was a fitting selection. It might just be the most pro-life film ever—especially since it was not conceived with the American Evangelical market in mind. More importantly, it is a profoundly moving film that also won the Cannes best actor award for Parasite’s Song Kang-ho. For his character, every unwanted baby has value, especially those he can facilitate black market adoptions for in Kore-eda’s Broker, which opens tomorrow in New York.

After helming his first film in France with The Truth, Kore-eda shifts to the current cultural capitol of the world, South Korea, for a tale inspired by the controversial baby boxes, designed to safely accept unwanted babies, no questions asked. The vast majority of such babies are placed in adopted home. However, when the mother leaves a note promising to return, they are sent to an orphanage instead—as sort of an escrow arrangement. The thing is the mothers almost never really return, consigning their abandoned foundlings to orphan-limbo. “For the sake of the babies,” part-time church employee Dong-soo erases the records of those babies deposited with maternal notes, so baby-broker Ha Sang-hyeon can facilitate a black-market adoption—for a fee of course.

Moon So-young is the exception. The morning after leaving her baby, she returns to reclaim him. Fortunately, He and Ha manage to intercept her. In his regular life, Ha is a workaday hand launderer, but he is sufficiently persuasive to talk Moon out of making trouble. In fact, he convinces her to help screen prospective parents for her baby. However, on the first stop of their road trip, they pay a visit to the orphanage that raised Dong-soo.

As a result, Moon starts to understand his ill-concealed resentment towards her. They also pick up a young stowaway, Hae-jin, who secretly joins their journey out of a need for belonging. It is actually a caravan if you include the two women are hot on their trail. Soo-jin and her junior colleague are detectives hoping to catch Ha and Dong-soo in the act.

Broker exemplifies the humanism and forgiveness found in all of Kore-eda’s very best films. The emotional pay-off lands brutally hard, but it never indulges in cheap sentimentality. Kore-eda does not serve up a conventionally “happy ending,” but he still takes viewers to a very uplifting place. This is one of Kore-eda’s best films to date, ranking alongside the classic After Life. It is a shame it is not getting the critical acclaim it warrants, probably because of its pro-life implications.

Rest assured, Kore-eda’s screenplay is never didactic, but over and over, his characters argue every baby deserves a chance. Honestly, if the Evangelical community does not embrace Broker, then go ahead and call them dumb philistines.

Tunnel: Surviving on Two Bottles of Water and a Birthday Cake

Politically connected J. Lloyd Haigh notoriously supplied rotten cables for the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, but its design was so sound, it held up nonetheless. Unfortunately, that will not be the case for the shoddily constructed mountain underpass Lee Jung-soo is driving through. He is about to become the focus of a media feeding frenzy when his car in trapped beneath a cave-in. Current events clearly inform Kim Seong-hun’s Tunnel (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Lee, a rental-car wholesale dealer is headed home with his daughter’s birthday cake when the unthinkable happens. This is not a matter of a few tiles falling from the roof. It is a complete collapse. Of course, the authorities are caught flat-footed, but at least Dae-kyung, the on-the-ground operations guy is a strong improviser. He will do his best to rescue Lee, but he will have constant distractions from the swarming press and preening politicians. Naturally, the latter are all in for photo ops in the early days of the rescue (we hope), but they bail when it turns into a protracted campaign. Unfortunately, that puts Lee’s wife Se-hyun under tremendous pressure to give up on him.

Tunnel is not merely a claustrophobic survival story in the mold of Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried or the mudslide movie Detour. Kim opens the film up into a caustic indictment of the drive-by media and the negligent political establishment (the echoes of the Sewol Ferry sinking are hard to miss). Yet, it also happens to be a tightly executed ticking clock drama. We are keenly aware of the passage of time and Lee’s dwindling supplies of food and water, especially when he discovers Mi-na, a second survivor painfully pinned behind the wheel of her car.

As our lead, Ha Jung-woo is an effectively grounded, completely identifiable everyman. Like always, Oh Dal-su inspires instant confidence as Dae-kyung, like a Korean Tommy Lee Jones. Frankly, it is hard to say who is more emotionally affecting, Bae Doo-na as the maligned and harassed Se-hyun or Nam Ji-hyun as the slowly expiring Mi-na, but they both elevate Tunnel far beyond workaday disaster movies.

Ironically, there are some decent catastrophic special effects in Tunnel, but viewers are likely to lose sight of them, focusing on the human element instead. Still, as a follow-up to the rip-roaring corrupt cop thriller, A Hard Day, Lee proves he is a massive talent to be reckoned with in multiple genres. Tense, bracing, and sometimes infuriating (because it is so spot-on depicting the cravenness of the media and politicians), Tunnel is highly recommended for those who appreciate social commentary and the drama of extreme circumstances when it opens this Friday (8/26) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

AAIFF ’15: A Girl at My Door

Lee Young-nam is a high functioning alcoholic. That alone would not derail her police career. After all, most big city forces have plenty of the low functioning variety. However, a scandal in her personal life had to be swept under the rug. As part of her rehabilitation, she must serve as a coastal fishing village’s station chief for one year. The last thing she needs is trouble, but when she gets personally involved with an abused school girl, conflict becomes inevitable in July Jung’s A Girl at My Door (trailer here), which screens as part of the 2015 Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

Lee is painfully reserved and socially awkward. The way she secretly stashes gin or vodka in water bottles does not look particularly healthy either. As soon as she sees the scrawny, conspicuously bruised Do-hee, she recognizes a fellow underdog. Lee proactively intervenes when Do-hee is bullied by classmates, but it is harder to protect her from her “guardians,” her resentful stepfather Park Yong-ha and his cruel, half-senile mother.

Park the wheeler-dealer is considered one of the few viable employers in the economically depressed township, so moving against him would be a tricky proposition, even for a copper with a spotless record. Nevertheless, after interrupting an especially vioent beating and seeing the marks left by subsequent assaults, Lee reluctantly shelters the emotionally broken girl in her own home. Obviously, this will be a problematic arrangement.

Even though Do-Hee quickly bonds with Lee, both carry extensive baggage that will complicate and hinder their relationship. The loathsome Park is also constantly turning up the pressure on Lee. Many times, she decides to wash her hands of Do-hee and Park, until a fresh outrage revives her indignation. Unfortunately, when a face from her scandalous past briefly visits, it gives him plenty of ammunition.

Door is light-years removed from a simplistic celebrations of innocent victims triumphing over adversity. In this story, there is darkness in everyone’s heart. It is also unusually nerve-wracking for a message-driven family abuse drama. Frankly, it is the sort of film that would make Oprah what’s-her-name’s head explode, which is a perfectly good reason to support its screenings.

It is also an enormously compelling film. Produced by art-house stalwart Lee Chang-dong, Door is just as much a gritty thriller as it is a work of social criticism. It is quite notable how many hot button issues Jung addresses, including child abuse, alcoholism, homosexuality, crony corruption, the exploitation of illegal migrant workers, and the shortcomings of the Korean justice system. Yet, each potentially controversial plot point flows seamlessly from the central narrative, rather than feeling tacked on for the sake of statement-making.

Wachowski regular Bae Doo-na takes her craft to a whole new level, basically ripping our souls out in the process with her quietly harrowing depiction of Lee. Watching her face, you can plainly see how much it hurts to be that repressed and alienated. Likewise, young Kim Sae-ron (who is amassing quite a resume, including the Lee Chang-dong produced A Brand New Life and the breakout action hit, The Man from Nowhere) viscerally conveys the physical and psychological trauma of abuse.

In an impressive debut, Jung takes the audience on a dark, twisty ride, while never watering down the narrative’s implications or taking any easy outs. It is tough stuff, but it latches onto viewers like a vice. Very highly recommended, A Girl at My Door screens tomorrow (7/26) at the Village East, as part of this year’s AAIFF.