A box at the entrance of a church or a hospital to collect the baby that its mother wishes to abandon. It’s a common, albeit controversial, practice in South Korea, where X-rated childbirth is not allowed. The Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda first became interested in this phenomenon at the time of the filming of Like father, like son, on a child exchange at the maternity ward. And which he then deepened when he had the opportunity to shoot a film with Korean actors.
“I have long believed that when a child is born, becoming a mother was more obvious than becoming a father, which required more time, explains the filmmaker to 20 minutes. So no, it’s not because a woman gives birth that she necessarily feels like a mother. And conversely, a woman may want to feel like a mother without giving birth. It was this reflection that led Kore-eda to imagine A family matter which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but also his new film The Lucky Starswhich goes even further in the family theme recomposed of odds and ends with somewhat limited and even downright outlaw characters.
A young woman slips her child into a box in front of a church. Two crooks seize it in order to resell it to an infertile but wealthy couple. This is the starting point of the Lucky Stars. And what does it matter if Kore-eda turns its back on the realism of situations which transforms this kidnapping into a road movie that is more comic than truly dramatic.
The relaxation of Song Kang-ho
The first surprise comes from the fact that the two child traffickers turn out to be quite friendly, generous and funny, with a special mention for Song Kang-howho played the father in Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, and who has mastered the art of holding a baby as if he had carried it all his life. “Really, I love how relaxed it is,” says Kore-eda. The second is that the young mother of the abandoned baby very quickly joins the crook duo in the kidnapping of her own child. “She will take time but will end up wanting to assume this motherhood”, says the filmmaker. The third, finally, comes from the duo of female cops who set off after them with the desire to round off the angles of a flagrante delicto which they seek to establish but which is slow to arrive. “False leads make it possible to question the prejudices that one may have about each of the characters”, further believes Kore-eda. All this gives a film on a rather serious social subject, but which does not take itself seriously. And it is precisely because his adventures are comical and not very credible, that The Lucky Stars manages to radiate a cheerful charm. With a special mention to Song Kang-ho whom we have the pleasure to find in great shape and who did not steal his interpretation prize at the last Cannes festival.