Movie Review: Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'Shoplifters' Shows You a Japan You've Never Seen Before

I usually do not like the winners of the Palme D'Or because I find them quite bizarre, but strangely, my tastes have aligned with their juries these past two years.

Last year's winner was also this year's Oscar Best Picture (Parasite from South Korea) and the year before that, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda submitted Shoplifters, which was also nominated for an Oscar Best Foreign Language Film (lost to Roma).

Shoplifters and Parasite would appear to be two strange movies to Filipinos because many of us love going to Japan and South Korea, gawking enviously at their wealth and modernity.

However, Bong Joon Ho and Kore-eda, show through their movies, people in their societies who live on the fringes. If Parasite was bizarre to you, Shoplifters ups the ante a bit and the title alone will give you a hint into the strangeness of their situation.

The movie asks several fundamental questions like "Are you really a mother just because you give birth to a child?" or "Is a family defined only by blood?". "Is it kidnapping when the child willingly goes with you to escape the clutches of child-abusing parents?" and I think the most touching question of all, "Can you call someone Dad even if he is not related to you by blood?"

Kore-eda answers these gray areas which I am sure many Filipino families also fall into, considering the number of OFW parents we have here and the number of common-law husbands and wives living together as second or third families.

The movie is a slow burn as Kore-eda firmly establishes in the first hour and a half that this is a real family even if they are not blood-related and that even if they shoplift, they are not evil people.

The movie though unravels quickly in the last 30 minutes, showing one of the most devastating dialogues I have seen in cinema in years. I am amazed at the restraint of the actors, just giving enough emotion without being melodramatic.

Every shot in those last 30 minutes is beautifully staged and packs so much emotion as Kore-eda decides to minimize the music and just focus the camera on the actor's faces.

I love the honesty of the characters even if they are poor and struggling. I have always believed that the truth will set you free, and in this instance, it is the admission of the truth that brings these characters much closer to each other - even if they are not related by blood. They are in essence, what a family really is.