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Shoplifters, 2018
A man and an adolescent boy wander into a grocery store. Using a careful and clearly-familiar choreography, they steal products from the shelves before making a smooth getaway. On their walk home, they come across a young girl alone in her home and impulsively invite her home. Taking the little girl back to the home, we discover that they are part of a larger "found family" (the relationships between the different characters are illuminated as the story goes on). Deciding to keep the girl with them instead of returning her home changes the dynamics in the house. We realize that the existence of this family is a house of cards, and one wrong move could send it all tumbling down.
I thought that this film was pretty fantastic. It asks pointed questions about what makes a family and who "deserves" to be a mother or a father to a child. However, while it has a lot of sympathy for the different characters and what they must do in order to survive on the fringes of society, it makes space to acknowledge their flaws and the ways that they deceive themselves and each other.
It's pretty stunning to realize just how well the film tells the story of each of the characters and illuminates their desires and what they do to achieve them. The character I identified with the most was Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), the mother of the family. It's a character filled with a heady mix of longing and pragmatism, and it's interesting to watch how different events bring out those opposing sides of her personality.
This is one of those films that I enjoyed so much that it's almost hard to write about it. I loved the way that it was filmed. I thought the performances were excellent.
I had one quibble with a plot point, namely (MAJOR SPOILERS)
It was only at the end of the film when reading about it that I realized that this was the same director who made Nobody Knows (and the splendid After Life, which does not connect as strongly to this movie but which I also loved). His sensibilities about how families function when pushed to the edge, and what it means to be part of a family are very touching to me.
Aside from my one (very minor) plot quibble, I thought that this film was excellent. I didn't want it to end.
, but honestly almost a .
Shoplifters, 2018
A man and an adolescent boy wander into a grocery store. Using a careful and clearly-familiar choreography, they steal products from the shelves before making a smooth getaway. On their walk home, they come across a young girl alone in her home and impulsively invite her home. Taking the little girl back to the home, we discover that they are part of a larger "found family" (the relationships between the different characters are illuminated as the story goes on). Deciding to keep the girl with them instead of returning her home changes the dynamics in the house. We realize that the existence of this family is a house of cards, and one wrong move could send it all tumbling down.
I thought that this film was pretty fantastic. It asks pointed questions about what makes a family and who "deserves" to be a mother or a father to a child. However, while it has a lot of sympathy for the different characters and what they must do in order to survive on the fringes of society, it makes space to acknowledge their flaws and the ways that they deceive themselves and each other.
It's pretty stunning to realize just how well the film tells the story of each of the characters and illuminates their desires and what they do to achieve them. The character I identified with the most was Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), the mother of the family. It's a character filled with a heady mix of longing and pragmatism, and it's interesting to watch how different events bring out those opposing sides of her personality.
This is one of those films that I enjoyed so much that it's almost hard to write about it. I loved the way that it was filmed. I thought the performances were excellent.
I had one quibble with a plot point, namely (MAJOR SPOILERS)
WARNING: spoilers below
that a small child who had been physically abused (scarred, burned) and whose parents had hidden her disappearance for over two months and who was on the radar of child services would be returned to those parents. Just . . . how? And especially with the amount of public scrutiny that the case had clearly received. Admittedly I know very little about how Child Services (or the equivalent agency) works in Japan, but it felt wrong, somehow.
It was only at the end of the film when reading about it that I realized that this was the same director who made Nobody Knows (and the splendid After Life, which does not connect as strongly to this movie but which I also loved). His sensibilities about how families function when pushed to the edge, and what it means to be part of a family are very touching to me.
Aside from my one (very minor) plot quibble, I thought that this film was excellent. I didn't want it to end.
, but honestly almost a .