#its really fascinating to further contextualize her work and to give her credit outside this one piece which shes exhaausstively attached to

[sendmyresignation]

finally reading jessica hoppers book of muisc criticism because the idea of being locked in some sort of personal sense of disagreement which inspires thousands of words on my end without reading more than one piece of her writing is so deeply embarrassing to me. anyway i love music so much.

[dweemeister]

Shoplifters (2018, Japan)

Films not in the English language are difficult sells in the United States. Over the decades, there have been a few waves, false dawns, of non-English language films and filmmaking figures becoming established figures in America’s culture. In the 1950s, with its domestic cinema regaining its foothold in the aftermath of World War II, Japan gave to the West a number of acclaimed, widely-seen films. Director Yasujirô Ozu (1953′s Tokyo Story, 1959′s Floating Weeds) was not among those directors who made their names internationally in those years – despite initial attempts to distribute his films outside of Japan, he was beaten to the punch by directors whose films (unintentionally) catered to Western expectations of exoticism and Orientalist thinking. Ozu – a specialist in meditative familial dramas – has only become known outside Japan within the last few decades, thanks to the increased interconnectivity of world cinema.

This brings us to Hirokazu Koreeda, perhaps Japan’s best living filmmaker but almost unknown outside of Japan and moviegoers with access to theaters that don’t always show the newest blockbuster. Koreeda’s narrative focus is similar to but less aesthetically rigid than Ozu – his films, like Ozu’s, display little Western influence (the two most popular living Japanese directors are Hayao Miyazaki and Takashi Miike; they both are heavily influenced by Western films). With the democratization of movie availability thanks to home media and streaming, Koreeda’s reputation should be blossoming. But in the last great waves of non-English language films becoming popular in North America (the 1950s-60s and late 1990s to mid-2000s), there were nationally-trusted film critics that served as gatekeepers and arthouse/revival theaters and video stores that served as local curators to accessing these movies. The democratization of film criticism (which, yes, applies to this movie-reviewing tumblr), the retreat of arthouse/revival theaters from rural and many suburban areas in North America, and the death of video stores have narrowed the options for Koreeda and filmmakers like him to gain greater recognition across the Pacific. For one of the best films of 2018, Shoplifters has had a miniscule release.

Shoplifters is the story of the Shibata family. Though some of the family members are related, they are, in part, a closely-knit found family. Father Osamu (Lily Franky) and his “son” Shota (Kairi Jô) support the family through their shoplifting; mother Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) works at an industrial laundry; young adult Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) works at a hostess club; the elderly Hatsue (Kirin Kiki) owns the residence and fraudulently supports the family with her late husband’s pension. One night after shoplifting, Osamu and Shota encounter Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a young girl sitting outside her parents’ residence – she appears cold, hungry. They invite her to stay with them the night, and Yuri accepts. The following night Osamu and Nobuyo intend to take Yuri home. They overhear a massive fight between her parents, with the mother’s words suggesting psychological and maybe physical abuse towards Yuri (she also exclaims, to paraphrase: “I wish I never had her”). Osamu and Nobuyo turn around with Yuri – fearful of what the parents have and might do to the girl. Yuri will be given a new name, Lin, and becomes a loved part of the Shibata household. Yet according to the letter of the law, Lin has been kidnapped. Greater troubles lie ahead for the Shibatas – threatening the lives they have built for themselves and for each other.

Going by the recent filmography of Hirokazu Koreeda – Like Father, Like Son (2013) and Our Little Sister (2015) among them – the questions that he, as sole screenwriter in addition to serving as director, poses in Shoplifters might seem simplistic with a superficial glance. What is a family? What do they do for each other? Whether you have been lucky to have come from a supportive family that has stuck together or whether you have not, you probably have some ideal of what a “family” looks like. No matter how old one may be now, this ideal probably emerged in childhood – based in what the trusted adult figures (if any) brought to one’s life. The two children in Shoplifters – Shota and Yuri/Lin – are, because of the nature of childhood, the most impressionable. How the older members of the family act will leave imprints on the children long after the end credits roll.

Yes, the Shibatas have taken Lin (who is about five years old) from her actual, biological parents – to turn her in is to risk exposing their shoplifting ways. But never in the film’s runtime do their actions raise any questions about the depth of how much they care. Where does this compassion come from? It appears that living on societal fringes has not dulled their instincts for kindness, but sharpened it. Lin is given a second chance at life as it should be lived. With the Shibatas, she never has to worry about feeling unwanted or being the cause of parental strife. For Shota, as the elder child, he fears being replaced (not to the extent that Kun feels in 2018′s Mirai, thankfully). Other than the inevitability of the film’s ending, the only other weakness that might be argued about Koreeda’s screenplay is how quickly Shota takes to Lin after his initial coldness towards her. In the closing scenes, Shota questions whether Osamu has really been the great, loving father figure he always made him out to be. Osamu’s answers to Shota’s queries are truthful – acknowledging fully what he was thinking during a fateful night, realizing the pain he might be inflicting on Shota. Ultimately Shota realizes that only he can say whether Osamu has been the father figure he claims to have been. Shota’s answer will inspire bittersweet tears.

Shoplifters, inspired by news reports about Japanese poverty and shoplifting because of the nation’s economic stagnation (ongoing since the 1990s and exacerbated by the graying of its population), premises the Shibata family in poverty and crime. Neither is romanticized or, worse, exotified. Whatever stealing Osamu and Shota engage in, it is never from individuals, but stores – their baseball-gesturing shoplifting carries no malice, existing only as a need for survival. In between the family’s time working at their jobs, the Shibatas can relax and be themselves. Take this excerpt the beach scene from the film’s second half:

Yuri/Lin and Aki play at the water’s edge, Osamu and Shota are swimming further offshore, and Nobuyo and Hatsue are enjoying lunch on the sand. Another scene with a fireworks display features a gorgeous shot of the family looking up, eyes sparkling in the blues and reds illuminating the sky. The children keep in touch with their innocence; so too the adults with their sense of wonderment and celebration. Those looking for a film teeming with self-loathing or self-pity because of the family’s poverty should prepare for disappointment. There is little self-serving dialogue making demands of others or organizations. The Shibatas’ situation is livable because of the support each family gives to another. Their home – cluttered (if we’re comparing this to what I’ve seen in Japanese films set in the 20th and 21st centuries) and without privacy – is portrayed as welcoming. As the film continues, we learn more about each member of the family. The nature of their work, their personalities, and prior histories reveal fascinating lives that cannot be defined solely by poverty and struggle.

A collection of outstanding performances by the ensemble cast helps make Shoplifters the moving film that it is. This was one of Kirin Kiki’s final films before her passing last September. In her later career, she had starred in many of Koreeda’s films and became one of the director’s best stock actors. As Hatsue, she plays a woman who has seen and done much but probably will not open herself up to tell most people about herself. There is a slight mischievous glint in the actress’ eyes, even when speaking earnestly to the fellow family members. And by her final appearance, Kiki shows us someone slowly fading away, on her terms. The other adult actors – Lily Franky, Sakura Andô, and Mayu Matsuoka – have their own challenging moments. Matsuoka (as Aki) has, contextually, the film’s most awkward scenario (have this film written by almost all other writers, and it’s a disaster), but she performs the moment in the most natural way possible. Franky (as Osamu) and Andô (as Nobuyo) are inseparable from Kairi (as Shota) and Sasaki (as Yuri/Lin), respectively. The beauty of their performances is intertwined with the child actors opposite them – expressing joy, abandonment, sorrow, and forgiveness.

The spirit of Yasujirô Ozu can not only be found in the themes present in Shoplifters, but in its cinematography by Ryûto Kondô (who has a sizeable filmography, but none of his films appear to have made a dent outside of Japan). Kondô’s camerawork during one-on-one conversations – specifically in the concluding passages – recalls how Ozu and his cinematographers (Yûharu Atsuta especially) often placed the camera in between the two figures speaking, obliterating the 180º rule, and making these moments feel documented, rather than staged. There are many long takes across Shoplifters, but never does the film feel too languid. Koreeda and Kondô have figured out how to shoot their film economically and expressively – something that few director-cinematographer combinations can ever combine effectively.

While researching for Shoplifters, Koreeda visited an orphanage. There, he encountered a young girl who had the picture book Swimmy by Leo Lionni (a Caldecott Honor winner) in hand. Says Koreeda in an interview:

The staff tried to stop her, telling her she was bothering us, but she read it to the end. Everyone, including the staff, was moved and applauded her. She looked so happy. I thought she really wanted to read that book to her parents. I couldn’t get her out of my head and wrote a scene reflecting that moment.

In the same interview, Koreeda said that Shoplifters was made for the girl he met that day.

Hirokazu Koreeda has been working towards Shoplifters for the entirety of his distinguished career. Once again, he has cemented himself as one of cinema’s greatest humanists – among the living and of all-time. In a time when English-speaking audiences seem unknowledgeable, maybe even hostile to, films in another language, there just so happens to be another non-English-language film that has been grabbing the headlines for the end of 2018 in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (not that I am complaining). Such is Koreeda’s luck once again; perhaps his timing will work out to his benefit some other year. But most importantly, Koreeda is making films presenting questions of familial love and the meaning of family itself in ways that few filmmakers can. For Shoplifters, the answers provided to those questions are incomplete, left for audiences to contemplate for themselves, in respect to wherever they may be in life.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Shoplifters is the one hundred and forty-ninth feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb.

NOTE: Shoplifters was seen as part of the 2018 Movie Odyssey.