Review of Shoplifters (2018) by Phuskine — 15 Jan 2019

We know very well that poor families suffer winter more than any other, yearning, whilst their bones splinter, the warm breeze of a summer morning. We know, as well, that when the sun and humidity arrive, these same families perspire and suffocate, seeking shade and shelter among deteriorated housing units that, paradoxically, end up amplifying the feeling of asphyxia. Addressing a colossal challenge like Shoplifters, a showcase of this world, demands a distinguished sensitivity in the narrative disposition of its script and, necessarily, an impeccable direction; that is, the satisfactory achievement of an intricate project that demonstrates full mastery in the use and handling of specific audiovisual poetics. But how far can this poetics go? Possibly, as far as what was achieved by Hirokazu Kore-eda in his latest film. Shoplifters (2018) is a jewel of hylemorphic cohesion, a risky gamble, which adds to the endless debate on the human question. It is about the film technique at the service of an impossible story, as impossible as life and the contradictions that abound in the heart of our modern societies. With the new motion picture of Kore-eda, we are witnessing a story of extreme delicacy, which makes us forget at times, through characters so fascinatingly portrayed, either by their singular histrionic charm or by the unstoppable dynamics of the acting ensemble, that the best intentions are always measured by their consequences and collateral damages. What is trully problematic comes from the careful consideration of the principles of its characters, particularly those presented by the ones who are adults, because, even though condemned socially, they raise a lot of questions about our own conception of what exactly does a family is and mean (...). What comes in the middle is a recrudescence of the harsh and ambivalent sensations that are thrown towards the spectator facing the events unfold. The characters go from mere cartoons to the nervousness that always accompanies the process of cracking an imposter. And we watch, then, how the narrative oscillates with violence between polarized extremes, namely, from the kidnapping of a girl to her warm acceptance within the household of the abductors, which is capable of making her feel, for the first time, determined, respected and loved; from frigidity to indulgence, from anonymity to intimate consideration of a stranger, from the dream of living in a new house with your family to the humbled recognition that your child can be lost joking about an expensive hammer... from living miserably to die incognitably. Bury me in the yard under the tiny pond (...). Its greatest virtue lies in the universality that underlies the act of unmasking others and finding, behind their faces, a mirror. Kore-eda decides to go a little further giving us the story of a family whose members, to a greater or lesser degree, resemble all families (...). Shoplifters shows us a different but more palpable Japan than ever. A demystified nation, stripped of marketing and the omnipresent katanas of the Tokugawa Period. There are as many Japan as there are Japanese, and the misfortunes and tribulations suffered in this hemisphere are endured over there under the coordinates of their cultural context. In a context in which the sweet character of Father Coloma (Ratón Pérez) has not been able to penetrate, we are reminded that, in childhood, there are mythical stories more transcendental than those told by our parents or relatives in sleepless nights. We are talking about the living narrations, of flesh and bone, embodied in the beings we love and admire as children. When not even your mother wanted to have you, you become someone like us.

Therefore, it is infertile to lecture on the intensity degrees of filial love, a fact that anguished Nobuyo deeply. Furthermore, it is a futility to aspire to quantify if the family that has been given to us, arbitrarily, is more loved than the one we choose, coming to it long after birth. For a child of Yuri’s or Shota’s age, anyone can be family if they receive from them an affective and respectful treatment... anyone. Even a thief. If insisted on ignoring such an elementary and foundational premise of the human psyche, there will only remain the recalcitrant grief of a lonely girl, already forgotten by her abusive father and her abused mother, who with a tender voice recites us the songs of numbers (to learn to count) taught by the monstrous family that kidnapped her for months (making her feel loved). There shall be left her sweet polychrome sketches of a visit to the beach. The candid melancholy of such a girl, seems to want to please the vertigo while holding the railing of a balcony that resembles where everything started. In her retina, the memory of feeling part of something still sparkles, despite the fact that she lived so far away then from her real family... In her memory, the immortal flight of his brother Shota still gleams...