"The Broker": Difficulties of the soul are relieved on the road journey

movie "Broker" poster

is Hirokazu Koreeda is obviously a sensitive and sharp, but gentle and delicate person. He penetrated the gaps and barriers in family relationships, especially seeing the life difficulties and inner depression of countless middle-aged people, and even felt that countless middle-aged people were exhausted due to the pressure of survival and the mental burden of having nowhere to go, and then slowed down. Slowly get away from the normal family model and life state, and become the "off the rails" in life. At this time, middle-aged people either escape in despair or face it peacefully. It's just that this strict and oppressive social atmosphere and the characters' self-denying and introverted behavior are deeply embedded in the soil of Japanese society. If you change time and space rashly, will the same plot happen again? Or will it happen the Japanese way? Hirokazu Kore-eda probably didn't think about it thoroughly.

In addition to the atmosphere creation and suspense settings in the opening scenes, which are fascinating, most of the time in "The Broker" is too bland and pale, and there is Hirokazu Koreeda's usual scheming and familiar routines everywhere. After the main characters appear, the audience can basically guess the subsequent plot direction and the fate of the characters. Although, we admit that every director has his own stable style and constant motif, this does not mean repetition, or a simple patchwork from previous works can be self-homing.

Of course, The Broker is innovative. On the surface, this innovation is to place the place where the story takes place in South Korea, and also to use Korean actors. We had reason to expect that a Japanese director would have an interesting chemistry or a violent collision with the Korean social climate, cultural characteristics, and the way Korean actors perform. Unfortunately, we did not see a new "It's Hirokazu", the film just moved the creative formula that the director had already mastered to another stage. The main scenes of the

film are placed in the van and the hotel, which is equivalent to the intentional or unintentional isolation of the characters' living space from the social reality of South Korea. In this way, the film does not have to work hard to capture or penetrate South Korea's social customs, ethical environment, cultural psychology and living conditions. The characters only need to deal with inner hesitation, ups and downs and labor pains, and hardly need to worry about social relations and ethical pressures. The emptiness and pallor of this figure is predictable. In a sense, the film just barely floats in Korea, but does not have any interaction and connection with the Korean life experience and cultural experience.

's "The Broker" uses a baby to string together the "brokers" Sang Hyun, Dong Soo, the boy Hae Jin from the nursery school, and Moon So Young, the mother of the baby Feather Star. Five people ride in a car and form a temporary family. The backbone of this "family" is the frustrated middle-aged man Xiangxuan. He is financially embarrassed and his career is struggling. After his divorce from his wife, his daughter is also lukewarm to him. He can only hope to sell Yuxing to obtain a turning point in his life. . However, Sang Hyun, Dong Soo and Moon So Young were extremely tangled in the process of finding a buyer for Yu Xing. It is based on this entanglement that the film provides an opportunity to observe the human heart and human nature. Sang-hyun and Dong-soo couldn't resist the temptation of money, but wanted to reduce moral guilt by packaging their actions as an act of kindness. As for Wen Suying, on the one hand, she wanted to get rid of her worries and at the same time erase the traces of her disgraced mother for her children, but she was finally reluctant to give up in the face of the natural surging maternal love.

sheds light on the ethical torment of the characters and sees through the faint rays of light in the depths of the human heart amid realistic considerations and emotional irrational impulses. After all, most of Hirokazu-eda's films belong to family ethics films, and there is no strongViolent dramatic conflicts can only be turned to digging into the hearts of the characters, so that in specific ethical situations, beyond the rigid measures of law, order of reality, etc., and resonate with the emotional value of human commonality, this is undoubtedly an extremely brilliant creative strategy. It's just that "The Broker" is a little thin and far-fetched about the hesitations and contradictions in the characters' hearts. It fails to set up powerful exciting events and dilemmas. It is only in the daily scenes and in the restrained performance of the actors. The characters lack the emotional fluctuations of a sense of hierarchy. In order to reflect the breakthrough,

added a detective type element in the journey of the five people, that is, Wen Suying killed Yu Xing's biological father and was wanted. At the same time, there are two policewomen who follow Xiangxuan and his party all the way, the original intention is just to capture the gang that sells babies. The film intentionally complicates the plot in order to enhance the viewing experience. However, these two sub-lines (Wen Suying wanted by the criminal police, and the baby gang arrested by the female police) should have been full of tension and even exciting action scenes, but they actually unfolded weakly and powerless. In addition, another line is added to the film, that is, the wife of Yu Xing's biological father also wants to buy Yu Xing. This way of interweaving multiple lines goes beyond the creative range that Hirokazu Kore-eda is familiar with, making every line scribbled to an end, but instead makes the audience lose sight of the emotional evolution and inner transition of several main characters. The

film hopes to reveal the surging undercurrents in the surface calm in an atmosphere of everydayness. In order not to break this rough presentation of daily life, the film deliberately chooses a distant perspective, observes and watches coldly, and rarely interferes and participates in the lives of the characters. This artistic treatment creates an air of alienation and grimness, but the risk is that the audience is too unfamiliar with the characters. Under normal circumstances, the audience needs to gradually understand the history and deep character of the characters during the progress of the plot, but the film deals with this in a perfunctory manner, which eventually leads to most of the characters as functional symbols, which do not reflect their role. Some emotional or human meaning. In particular, the two policewomen, although they have made some progress in the direction of the plot, have little achievement in the expression of the theme. The middle-aged policewoman Xiuzhen is obviously traumatized and wants to achieve some kind of redemption in her heart through the righteous act of rescuing Yu Xing and capturing the baby gang. However, the audience knows very little about Xiuzhen, and it is difficult to see her inner ups and downs, so they are unclear or indifferent to many of her actions.

Of course, "The Broker" certainly has its moving parts, but in my opinion, it is not the performance of , Song Kangho, . It seems that it has become Song Kanghao's instinct to portray the simplicity and cunning of ordinary people, and to express the numbness and turbulence in calmness. On the contrary, there are several scenes in the film, which convey the subtle heartbeats and inadvertent emotions of the characters in a subtle way, but they are calm, which is very touching. When the five people are divided into two "families" and ride the Ferris wheel in the playground, they naturally create two quiet and independent spaces, which provide an excellent opportunity for their emotional growth, and the characters become more tender and affectionate because of this moment. . Also, when Dongxiu and Wen Suying were chatting on the train, the film used the characteristics of the train passing through the caves, creating the change of light on their faces, reflecting the ups and downs of the characters' moods. However, there are too few such poetic moments and lyrical passages in the film.

is Hirokazu Koreeda in "The Broker", who wants to tell the audience a story that has emotional power and can bring heart touching. He hopes that on the way of "baby trafficking", through the interaction with each other and the stimulation of the outside world, it will sway little by little. The spiritual ripples of the characters also stimulate the inner waves of the audience, so that in a soft and timeless state, they quietly tell the unchanging feelings and philosophies in the world. Unfortunately, due to the many flaws in the plot setting and characterization of "The Broker", its sincerity is strong, but its artistic appeal is mediocre. (Gong Jinping)

source: Guangming.com - Literature and Art Review Channel