Shoplifters (15.)
Directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu.
Starring Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka, Kairi Jyo, Miyu Sasaki and Kilin Kiki. In Japanese with subtitles. 121 mins
The family that nicks together stays together in this latest drama from Hirokazu, which made off with the top Barn D'Or prize at this year's Cannes film festival. Like a Japanese Shameless the family, centred around the benign figure of Granny (Kiki), are as thick as thieves: so close that nothing comes between them and the world, they steal the friendships that bound them together.
One night father (Franky) and son (Jyo) are on their way home from a bit of light thievery when they spot a young girl left alone on a balcony, covered in scars and looking famished, and they take her home to look after her and give her a nice meal. They try to return her but find her parents fighting so they decide to keep her as well.
In films such as Like Father, Like Son and After The Storm, Kore-eda has been a compassionate observer of Japanese society, almost a contemporary Ozu. He's also a man who can slip you a soap opera plot without you noticing. Kore-eda's dramas about middle-class families are generally cold and distant affairs, the emotion slipping out through the cracks. Here, dealing with people on the fringes of society, struggling and skiving to try and survive, he seems a lot more animated.
It's a harsh life they have to endure and its a harsh view of Japanese society. Perhaps there is a sentimentality to his affection for his salt-of-the-earth characters: these people are not to be trusted but they have a life and energy and kindness that is hard to ignore. They seem much more fluid than his usual protagonist, as shown in the way that the exact relationships between them are never explained. This fluidity is deliberate as it is setting us up to be mugged by Kore-eda's own bit of larceny, when his light fingers will whip away the rug from beneath us in the film's last third.
Directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu.
Starring Lily Franky, Sakura Ando, Mayu Matsuoka, Kairi Jyo, Miyu Sasaki and Kilin Kiki. In Japanese with subtitles. 121 mins
The family that nicks together stays together in this latest drama from Hirokazu, which made off with the top Barn D'Or prize at this year's Cannes film festival. Like a Japanese Shameless the family, centred around the benign figure of Granny (Kiki), are as thick as thieves: so close that nothing comes between them and the world, they steal the friendships that bound them together.
One night father (Franky) and son (Jyo) are on their way home from a bit of light thievery when they spot a young girl left alone on a balcony, covered in scars and looking famished, and they take her home to look after her and give her a nice meal. They try to return her but find her parents fighting so they decide to keep her as well.
In films such as Like Father, Like Son and After The Storm, Kore-eda has been a compassionate observer of Japanese society, almost a contemporary Ozu. He's also a man who can slip you a soap opera plot without you noticing. Kore-eda's dramas about middle-class families are generally cold and distant affairs, the emotion slipping out through the cracks. Here, dealing with people on the fringes of society, struggling and skiving to try and survive, he seems a lot more animated.
It's a harsh life they have to endure and its a harsh view of Japanese society. Perhaps there is a sentimentality to his affection for his salt-of-the-earth characters: these people are not to be trusted but they have a life and energy and kindness that is hard to ignore. They seem much more fluid than his usual protagonist, as shown in the way that the exact relationships between them are never explained. This fluidity is deliberate as it is setting us up to be mugged by Kore-eda's own bit of larceny, when his light fingers will whip away the rug from beneath us in the film's last third.
