In
many ways, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest feature has been a gift to the Japanese
film industry. Yes, it won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, but on a more sentimental
level, it provided an opportunity to mourn for the late, great Kirin Kiki, who passed
away three months after the film’s Japanese release. Admittedly, her character
eventually receives a rather unconventional funeral, but she has a rather unconventional
family in Kore-eda’s Shoplifters (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Technically,
Osamu Shibata is the head of the household, but he is uncomfortable with the
authority such a term would imply. On the other hand, he would very much like
his “son” Shota to call him “dad,” but the pre-teen is not ready for that yet.
Viewers quickly deduce Shota is a runaway who has been adopted by this unruly
but protective family of small-time grifters. Osamu’s only proper legal tie
could very well be to his wife Nobuyo, but they also live with their
twentysomething “daughter,” Aki, and the clan’s matriarch, Hatsue, who is their
primary source of economic support, from her fraudulent claims to her long-dead
husband’s pension and periodic guilt money extracted from the son born to his
second wife. Shoplifting is also an important supplement for them.
The
Shibatas are petty crooks, but they are also working poor. Both Osamu and
Nobuyo toil long hours at menial jobs. Yet, they are still a fun and loving
family unit. Frankly, when Yuri, an abused and neglected six-year-old is also
adopted into the family, it is the best thing that could happen to her. Her
thuggish parents are also happy to be rid of her, until they suddenly find themselves
accused of her presumed murder.
Kiki
is terrific and Lily Franky was truly born to play a sad hound dog like Osamu,
but it is the heartrending and utterly unaffected portrayal of young Miyu
Sasaki as Yuri (renamed Rin) who will leave you emotionally ruined. Through her
eyes, Kore-eda definitely asks what exactly it means to be a family—and clearly
suggests society’s more legalistic definition is sorely inadequate. Shoplifters is also a prime example of
his ability to elicit subtle yet revealing performances from his cast. Sakura
Ando (probably still best known for 100 Yen Love), whose work as tough-talking, warm-hearted Nobuyo sneaks up on viewers
and then really lowers the boom.
Kore-eda
has maintained the preeminence of heartfelt Japanese family dramas, very much
in the tradition of Yasujiro Ozu. This time around, he makes a conscious
decision to incorporate more social commentary, with respects to issues of
poverty and the somewhat disproportionate approbation the crimes of the Shibata
family-gang faces versus that of Yuri’s mother. It is clear what Cannes and
subsequent critics have responded to, but Kore-eda is such a consistently
sensitive and accomplished artist, it seems almost unfair that this film should
be anointed for rather arbitrary, non-cinematic reasons, especially since his
previous three films, The Third Murder,
After the Storm, and Our Little Sister were less reminiscent of his prior work and personally resonated for
us considerably more. However, you can only have these debates over a filmmaker
with filmography of such uniform quality.
