Review: Shoplifters (2018)

Shoplifters (2018)

Here is my first 'non-mainstream' film review (yes, I do make an effort to not only watch superhero films...). Shoplifters, a Japanese film by director/writer, Hirokazu Kore-eda, was undoubtedly one of the best films I saw this past year. It is unfortunate that this, and other excellent foreign films, may be difficult for many to see in the theatre due to the nature of limited releases for such foreign films in North American markets. I feel lucky to be in a city like Toronto where there is an effort to show foreign and other more-independent features at theatres such as the TIFF Lightbox (which is where I saw Shoplifters).

Shoplifters is not an easy film - that much I can say with confidence. The story is about a family in Tokyo that lives on the bottom-end of Japanese society; they are impoverished and each member - be it parent, child or grandparent - must do what they can to help provide for each other. As the title refers to, the means of providing that the family takes on are often not what our society would deem as moral or, in some cases, even legal. The difficult nature of the film is not limited to what the characters do to get by, but is built into the very foundation of the family itself, their relations to one another, their history, and more. However, to go further into this would spoil much of the film.

Suffice it to say, that it is in this way that the film paints a moral grayness in its story that will cause the viewer to think long and hard about what they have seen - the actions of its characters and the story - after its completion. In my opinion, I do not believe that the film has an agenda in trying to make the audience feel a specific way about the characters (though there are plenty of evocative scenes that will send you along the entire continuum of emotion). I simply see the film as a story about humans - a tough one at that -  that is meant to encourage discussion and open the eyes of viewers to a segment of society that, from what I have seen, is not often shown on-screen. Shoplifters is an incredibly made, nuanced, and important film. For anyone who enjoys watching a film truly about the human experience, I recommend you see this one.
9.5/10

(With regards to the Oscars, I would rather not go into a full discussion about the Best Foreign Film category here. Although I would have preferred Shoplifters to win the award, Roma was, in all accounts, also an excellent film. And with a director like Cuaron at its helm, I would not have expected any of the other nominees to really have stood a chance.)