Shoplifters shows that family is not all about biology
Shoplifters, winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, is a Japanese drama directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda that tells the life of a family struggling to make ends meet. While this may not be the most ideal family, as they shoplift most of their items and their two children are technically kidnapped, they still show the love and support for each other that is prevalent in any family, regardless of whether it’s biological or not.
Kore-eda’s directional style is quite simplistic, but there is strong and clear emotion coming from the actors through their heartbreaking story. Each character had their own individual loss and pain that was distinct within their stories. It came across through specific scenes in the movie, but I didn’t fully understand each character until the end. The most important thing about deciding the quality of a film is based on if it was able to leave an impact on its audience. Shoplifters fully achieved this.
The film opens with Osama Shibatu (Lily Franky) and his son Shotu (Kairi Jō) finishing their shoplifting for the day. On their walk home, they notice a young girl locked out of her house. They see she looks frail and bring her back to their home for a meal. When Osama and his wife Noboyu go to take Yuri home, they hear her parents fighting about how they didn’t want her. Osama and Noboyu decide to take Yuri back to their home and, although this was legally a kidnapping, the Shibatu family was giving Yuri a better home.
However, the Shibatu family didn’t have the strongest household themselves. They worked low wage jobs and did not make enough money to shop, but they cared for each other and supported each other. Regardless of the circumstances, they still were a family, whereas Yuri’s biological parents were not.
Family is not always found within one’s genetics, but in the group of people individuals find to support them. In one of the final moments in the movie, Shotu leaves on a bus while Osama chases the bus, and Shotu whispers the word “Dad,” which is something Osama always wanted Shotu to see him as. This one word Shotu says means so much, no matter where he goes, the Shibatus will always be his family. The comparison between having a family, and being torn apart from your family displays its importance.
Shoplifters is considered a drama, but the film itself is not terribly dramatic, it seems more realistic and in many ways shows a lighthearted world despite that which lies below. Watching Shoplifters was an experience; I became invested in the Shibatu family, who live a completely different life in a different place. Kore-eda made it possible to understand the lives of these characters and their emotions while knowing little about them, and that is extraordinary.
