Kore-eda - Shoplifters

A man and a boy in a shop. They have eye contact. They have done this before and they will do it again. It welds them together. They steal to survive. No jewellery and no gold either, but food for their family. It's cold outside. On the way home they notice that they have forgotten the shampoo. But it's too cold to go back and get some more. The man is called Osamu (Lily Franky) and the boy Shota (Jyo Kairi). Although they are poor, they offer a girl a croquette and take her home with them. Later that night they will bring the girl back. They hear the girl's parents arguing loudly. Did they even notice the daughter's absence? More importantly, will they really let her go? One could call what Nobuyo and Osamu are planning a kidnapping without a ransom. We could use a similar moral justification for their shoplifting. And what exactly does family mean? Does the birth of a child automatically make you a mother? Nobuyo and Osamu are more caring than their biological parents and yet not "family". If you watch all of Hirokazu Koreeda's movies, you get an impression of his broad concept of "family". In Shoplifters we get to know his characters so deeply and intimately, that we feel ourselves as belonging to the "family". Koreeda's protagonists belong to the lower class and slowly lose their ground under their feet. The finale is one of the most powerful, the most emotional, the most moving you'll see this year at the cinema! This is mainly because you feel so close to the characters. These characters aren't just a mouthpiece for Korea's issues of family and social inequality. They're real people, as if they existed long before the release. If you get addicted to your cinema (and it's almost impossible to avoid it), you go down to our video store. There you will find all his films.