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The idea of the 'family' can be more fluid than ever before now, it seems. Yet, polite society may still affect a condescending, or disapproving, glance towards a family that doesn't quite tick certain boxes, fall within a few established parameters. I've never been to Japan but it's long been suggested, as Westernised countries go, the idea of keeping up appearances there is considered of the upmost importance.
Building from this rather broad assumption, what happens when a family, of sorts, fails to behave as a family should? What if they break both rules and laws and, yet, at the same time, prove themselves more capable of love and compassion, and fun, than more nuclear families, ones that have become emotionally damaged by the expectations, and aspirations, society demands of them?
That's the premise of Hirokazu Kore-eda's new film Shoplifters and if it starts a little slowly, confusingly even, then that is surely by intent. It's like when you first arrive in a new city, or start a new job. You don't know your way around, you don't know people's names. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time and a lot of the pleasure, and satisfaction, comes with working out which road goes where, who connects to who, and, eventually, getting beneath the surface of either the city or your new colleagues. Finding what's within.
We're introduced to Osamu (Lily Franky) and Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) who live as a couple in one of Tokyo's less moneyed suburbs, along with Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), Shota - an awestruck, and handsome, young boy (Kairi Jo), and the family matriarch Grandma (Kirin Kiki) who's often seen slurping up a bowl of noodles, knitting, or dispensing pearls of wisdom and sympathy in equal measure.
It's unclear to us just how these people are related, and relate, to each other but they seem to live a fairly harmonious, if meagre, existence. Shota sleeps in a cupboard, Aki and Grandma curl up together in a single bed, and Osamu showers in what looks like a pantry. To keep them in food and lodging they get by, mostly, on a life of crime. Osamu takes Shota out to supermarkets and local stores to rob groceries etc; and Nobuyo supplements her paltry wages at a laundry by helping herself to whatever's been left in the customer's pockets.
Aki's contribution is to earn a few extra bucks stripping down to her bra and knickers (no fingers down the knickers though she's told by her boss, it's not that kind of establishment) and thrusting herself, with dead eyes, at faceless men behind a perspex screen. The difference between the look of Aki's face at work and Aki's face at home cuddling up to Grandma, drinking tea, and chatting says as much about the dehumanising effect of both work and sexual objectification as a hundred academic theses.
One evening Osamu and Shota spot a lost, cold, hungry little girl with scars up her arm who refuses to talk. Yuri comes back with them and, soon, she's accepted both into the family and their shoplifting racket. Her hair is cut and she changes her name to Lin. Gradually, she comes out of her shell, developing a close emotional bond with Nobuyo, a maternal figure, and a playful sibling like relationship with Shota.
But local news stories tell us that Yuri/Lin has been reported as a lost child and has become something of a cause celebre in the Japanese capital. As we slowly begin to see the dynamics between this disparate group of characters, brought together either by chance, necessity, or love, we also begin to wonder how their legally perilous lifestyle will play out. Our suspicion remains that it will not end well. No good deed, remember, ever goes unpunished - and if you want a quote for the not so good deeds, it's worth remembering the evergreen theory that if you steal £5 they arrest you, if you steal £5,000,000 they give you a peerage. These people are not stealing millions.
The story unfolds without moralising and, at times it feels, without any grand narrative at all. There are a selection of set pieces and in watching each of these we eke out a little bit more about each of the key player's back stories and motivations. We witness some playful afternoon sex between the passionate and nurturing Nobuyo and the childlike, almost chaste, Osamu, we see the family bonding on a day out at the beach, holding hands, jumping the waves, and opening up to each other, and we see a death, a death that is handled both with compassion and respect and, at the same time, treated as just another part of life, another obstacle to be surmounted before moving on. Most of all, we see confusing, conflicted adult lives as if viewed through the eyes of a child.
While a child's eye view of the world can, at times, be terrifying it can also be beautiful. There's a sense of wonder, a feeling of awe, that the years can scrape away from us. By no means does Shoplifters paint a picture of tourist Tokyo but, with the aisles of shops, the markets, and the knot of streets that Shota and Yuri/Lin are often seen running through, it gives us that sense of the world as our own personal adventure playground that you remember from your own childhood.
This gives the film a romantic, nostalgic air, that works nicely with, rather than rubs up against, its austere reality. Not only does the film always look wonderful, each individual performance is fantastic. They all feel absolutely real. Even, after a fashion, the slightly ludicrous Lily Franky as Osamu. Sakura Ando and Maya Matsuoka give Nobuyo and Aki grace and dignity while at the same time imbuing them both with a sense of that aforesaid childish wonder.
But it is, I think, the kids the film really belongs too. It feels like we're learning the story along with them. Looking through their eyes at the adult world rather than through the adult gaze at the world of children like so many other films. As Yuri/Lin, Miyu Sasaki will melt your heart. There is a sadness in her that you're desperate to see lifted and when she sees the sea for the first time you can't help but share in her wonder.
As her older 'brother', Shota, Kaira Jo is harder to read. He's at that age where he's beginning to make up his own mind about what's right and wrong, where life starts to become a whole different ball of confusion, and a decision he makes based on these new realities will become the pivot on which the whole story will take a startling 180 degree turn.
Perhaps the only one in the entire two hour running time. Shoplifters is not a film full of grand reveals, shocks, or action sequences even though the story it tells could so easily have been filmed that way. It's to Kore-eda's great credit that he's created a more nuanced take on a quite extraordinary tale, one in which it's not always clear exactly where our sympathies lie, and the distinction between good guys and bad guys becomes so blurred it's almost invisible.
It's a brave piece of film making that credits its audience with the intelligence to make their own decisions and it's such a well executed piece of cinema that some hours after leaving the theatre this particular audience member was still deeply ruminating on the whole experience.
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