Full disclosure, as I’m covering Broker for the Turkish-language Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, and Broker is a Korean-language film, I watched the film in Korean with Turkish subtitles. Unfortunately, I don’t speak either language. That said, while I missed out on the specifics of the dialogue, I was able to follow the emotional journey of the characters.
I wonder if my experience watching Broker was similar to the one Hirokazu Koreeda had making the film and his previous feature venture The Truth. Hirokazu Koreeda is a Japanese filmmaker whose 2018 film Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. His follow-ups to that success were the French and English-language The Truth (which was set in Europe) and now the Korean-language Broker (also set in Korea). To create both these films, he probably used a translator to communicate with the actors and trust people they were giving the lines he wanted, and like myself, judged the performance based purely on the emotion conveyed.
And just like Shoplifters, his ability to capture emotional performances to tell the story works here in Broker. He juggles a large ensemble in this film, and I was drawn in from the opening frames. There was little dialogue in the opening of the film. This allowed me to build connections to the characters and the world before I even fully registered that I wouldn’t be able to understand the dialogue. The music really set the tone and drew me in.
While Song Kang-ho is probably the most recognizable face in the cast to western audiences, having starred in Parasite, every actor is asked to step into the spotlight, including the baby at the center of the story. The film is about a young mother (So-young played by Ji-eun Lee) who takes her baby to one of the safe drop centers. Only at the location, a pair of individuals (Sang-hyeon played by Song Kang-ho and Dong-soo played by Dong-won Gang) take her baby to sell; they’re the brokers. Outside, a pair of detectives (Soo-jin played by Bae Doona and Detective Lee played by Lee Joo-young) watch, indicating this is not the first time a baby has been left and sold.
However, So-young returns and, somehow, after confronting the brokers, she ends up going with them on their journey to sell her baby. It’s clear from very early on that while money might be one reason the pair do this, it’s not the only one, as they are willing to take their time. They also are very gentle with the baby.
The film becomes a bit of a road movie as the trio, plus the baby and another child, seek out the ideal family, all while the detectives are on their tale, waiting to catch them red-handed.
Would I have gotten more out of this movie if I had been watching a version with English subtitles? Obviously. But I never turn down an experience to see a film or theatre event just because it’s not in my language, because in good works, so much is conveyed without the necessitate of dialogue. I think Broker is one such piece, but if you have a chance to watch it with English subtitles, feel free to tell me what I missed out on.
Broker had its world premiere at Cannes and has since been doing the festival circuit, most recently screening at the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival in their Another World section.
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