2018’s Shoplifters,
written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Starring Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Kirin Kiki, Mayu
Matsuoka, Jyo Kairi, and Miyu Sasaki.
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
What is it about?
Set more or less in present day Tokyo, a Japanese makeshift
family huddles together trying to get by. Middle aged couple Osama (Lily
Franky) and Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) are the mother and father, while
their friend Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) and Aki’s grandmother, Hatsue (Kirin Kiki)
also live there. The adults raise a child named Shota, (Jyo Kairi), and the
family sustains itself through a variety of means through employment, old age
pensions, grift, and shoplifting. One day the family comes across a young girl,
whom they learn is being neglected and abused by her parents, and decide to
take her in to their care. A number of questions come up, regarding just what a
family should look like, society’s role in shaping it to its standards, and
just how precarious some families find life in modern day Japan following
decades of stagnation/recession.
Why is it worth seeing?
Writer/Director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ode to family dynamics, Shoplifters, dares to try to address
questions regarding a deceptively complex question- what makes a family? It’s a definition rife with thorny
complexities- is it the people you share blood with, or the people you spend
time with? In practice, the answer is often in column C- all of the above. At
least that’s what Kore-eda’s latest film implies, through its Japanese setting
that has been clearly impacted by the two or three decade long economic
recession/stagnation referred to as the “Lost Score” years.
Kore-eda drops us right in the middle of a family hub, its overcrowded milieu of survival and hustle that could be described as a business-like routine, if only to mask its everyday struggle and occasional desperation. In it, we see characters who make no attempt to hide their humanity for the sake of inside voices. Filled with some of the most pronounced noodle sucking and fruit ingesting you’ll ever see, this is not your grandfather’s Tokyo Story. Ozu’s 1953 masterpiece featured “tatami shots”, a low camera position which emphasized order and a balance for the various characters. But here, the characters (and their respective cluttered lives), threaten to haphazardly spill out of every corner of the frame. It’s a tidy metaphor for the way globalism and capitalism have turned some people’s lives upside down, and splintered the foundation of society by fragmenting the family dynamic. It’s shown here in the way that the family lives a hand to mouth existence, despite making what I believe is 5 different types of income. Through employment in various unreliable gig economy stints, to an old age pension, to finally guilt payments from relatives- and that’s before including shoplifting and theft. It’s an able demonstration of how it’s difficult for citizens to survive without much of a safety net.
Not since 2017’s The Florida Project (my #2 movie of that year), has a film so strongly grappled with viewer’s empathy. It’s not hard to see how- the family takes in a young girl, clearly neglected AND abused, unprotected by her biological family and the system that is supposed to protect her, and tries to do exactly that for her well being. But the family also teaches its children to steal and be morally flexible, implicating them in the crimes they’re mixed up in, and it always feels like there’s yet another grift just around the corner- or a body buried beneath your feet. But amidst the struggle, Kore-eda inserts moments of sweetness, so crucial for victims of trauma- those periods of safety that can help the elastic brain heal from its catastrophic but not permanent damage. It really strengthens its convincing case for people’s need for connection.
I’m not clear as to the politics as to why the film won the 2018 Cannes Palm d’Or (otherwise known as Best Picture of the prestigious film festival), but it could be the way Kore-eda first introduces us to the characters and their family dynamic first, and then in its strong final act shows us their individual histories in all of their misshapen and chaotic needs. It really asks some hard questions about both the challenges of systems interfering with people’s attempts to make life more pleasant for themselves, and if people deserve to be free in society if they won’t follow its rules and laws. While the film can be difficult to follow at times in all of its jaggedness, it’s a poignant journey worth taking, and challenge worth undertaking in terms of accepting people of all varieties.
Kore-eda drops us right in the middle of a family hub, its overcrowded milieu of survival and hustle that could be described as a business-like routine, if only to mask its everyday struggle and occasional desperation. In it, we see characters who make no attempt to hide their humanity for the sake of inside voices. Filled with some of the most pronounced noodle sucking and fruit ingesting you’ll ever see, this is not your grandfather’s Tokyo Story. Ozu’s 1953 masterpiece featured “tatami shots”, a low camera position which emphasized order and a balance for the various characters. But here, the characters (and their respective cluttered lives), threaten to haphazardly spill out of every corner of the frame. It’s a tidy metaphor for the way globalism and capitalism have turned some people’s lives upside down, and splintered the foundation of society by fragmenting the family dynamic. It’s shown here in the way that the family lives a hand to mouth existence, despite making what I believe is 5 different types of income. Through employment in various unreliable gig economy stints, to an old age pension, to finally guilt payments from relatives- and that’s before including shoplifting and theft. It’s an able demonstration of how it’s difficult for citizens to survive without much of a safety net.
Not since 2017’s The Florida Project (my #2 movie of that year), has a film so strongly grappled with viewer’s empathy. It’s not hard to see how- the family takes in a young girl, clearly neglected AND abused, unprotected by her biological family and the system that is supposed to protect her, and tries to do exactly that for her well being. But the family also teaches its children to steal and be morally flexible, implicating them in the crimes they’re mixed up in, and it always feels like there’s yet another grift just around the corner- or a body buried beneath your feet. But amidst the struggle, Kore-eda inserts moments of sweetness, so crucial for victims of trauma- those periods of safety that can help the elastic brain heal from its catastrophic but not permanent damage. It really strengthens its convincing case for people’s need for connection.
I’m not clear as to the politics as to why the film won the 2018 Cannes Palm d’Or (otherwise known as Best Picture of the prestigious film festival), but it could be the way Kore-eda first introduces us to the characters and their family dynamic first, and then in its strong final act shows us their individual histories in all of their misshapen and chaotic needs. It really asks some hard questions about both the challenges of systems interfering with people’s attempts to make life more pleasant for themselves, and if people deserve to be free in society if they won’t follow its rules and laws. While the film can be difficult to follow at times in all of its jaggedness, it’s a poignant journey worth taking, and challenge worth undertaking in terms of accepting people of all varieties.
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