Shoplifters

Shoplifters, directed by renowned Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda, is the story of an unconventional working class family living in a cluttered and crumbling apartment somewhere in Tokyo. On the surface, Shoplifters seems like it would be a fairly sombre film. A husband and wife who work gruelling jobs for a pittance, a young boy who is highly skilled in the art of shoplifting, an ailing widow stretching out her pension to feed six people, and a young girl abused and abandoned by her birth parents – all the makings of a super melancholic couple of hours. But no! Surprisingly, Shoplifters is an enchantingly light and hopeful film that embraces the importance of family and the universal strength of the human spirit.

Shoplifters is a drama by genre, but the dramatics are few and far between. The essence of the narrative is not overly plot driven, but instead delicately nestled between the lines, in the moments between the characters and the soft nuances of their interactions. This ‘contemplative drama’ is somewhat of a signature style of Hirokazu Kore-Eda, as he claims to deliberately break with convention and strip his films of noise and tension.

Left mainly to their own devices, the family, though very poor and always uncertain about their futures, find comfort and contentment together, and it was a sincere pleasure to engage and empathise with each character. The acting was natural to perfection and highlighted all the cheeky, playful, kind and loving quirks that can exist between family members.

The cinematography and atmosphere of Shoplifters accentuates the characterisation. Settings are unspectacular and muted at first glance, but an unhurried pace allows time for their subtle vibrancy to slowly reveal itself to the eye. A pop of butter yellow on Yuri’s dress, the steam swirling and rising from a bowl of soup, the sticky sweat on the children’s faces as they hunt for cicada shells on a hot summer day – each moment is beautifully imbued with visceral little signs of life. A standout is the scene in which Osamu and Noboyu (the husband and wife, played by Lily Franky and Sakura Ando, respectively) are gifted with a rare moment alone during a blue hued summer rainstorm. As they slurp noodles in an ASMR-esque way and languidly share their passions for each other, another layer of intimacy is revealed between them and their personalities become even more relatable.

As the film progresses, the familial connections between the characters aren’t as they initially seem, but as the truth is slowly revealed, it only seems to strengthen their ties, along with the heart-warming message that family truly is what you make it. Shoplifters is a welcome change to engage with a piece of cinema that was unwaveringly hopeful from start to finish.

If anything is a feel-good flick, it’s this one.

Shoplifters
In cinemas now
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