When you have a child, do you have to be a mother?
This is the torture issued by "Thief Family".
2018 Cannes Palme d'Or, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Japan Academy Award for Best Film, the Asian Film Awards for Best Film;
Metascore 97, Douban 8.7, IMDb 8.0, Rotten Tomatoes Freshness 99%.
A great film without controversy.
"Thief Family" is extremely outstanding from the script, character shaping, lens language, actor performance, theme expression and other aspects. It is Kore-eda who seems to have poured out all the directing skills he has accumulated over the past twenty years, and it is like a melon ripening.
Continuing the focus on marginalized people since 2004's "Nobody Knows," Thief Family's eyes are also focused on an "abnormal" family.
The story tells that a family of five people originally met and lived with a little girl, but in the end, due to an accident, the family was forced to run to their own things and embarked on a completely different path.
Kore-eda continued his trick of rewriting the script while shooting, but the script was not messy at all.
The little girl Yuri is like a thread, she connects the fragmented life of the original family of five into a smooth movie.
"Father" Shibata and "son" Shota appear first, and they tacitly steal at the supermarket to replenish food and daily necessities for the family.
Shibata is a construction worker with a meager salary, and only by stealing can he make the family's life a little more comfortable.
A lot of things are unaffordable, including Shota's school location.
Shota can only be like Amin in "Nobody Knows", who has nothing to do on weekdays and wanders the streets by herself.
After completing their theft mission, on their way home, they see Yuri, who is left unattended outside the house.
Very typical catalytic event.
It is Kore-eda who uses the composition to suggest that Yuri is in an oppressed environment, while Shibata is embarrassed and is willing to send the cola cake he bought to a strange little girl to eat, initially revealing his kind nature.
Shibata took Yuri back home and led out the other family members.
Kore-eda's cleverness is that instead of introducing the characters to the audience with a clumsy plot of introducing themselves to the little girls, they go directly into the daily lives of the characters and construct their initial impressions with lines and actions.
As they live, the plot moves forward in tandem, and more information ensues.
"Mother" Nobuyo is a worker in a large laundromat, and she also steals when she works.
"Grandma" Hatsue has a condolence money every month, she does not use much herself, basically deposited in the bank. Her relationship with her "aunt" Yaji is closer than that of other family members.
Yaji works at a custom shop and also has a regular income every month.
In the course of all kinds of daily life, the relationship between several family members gradually revealed "cattiness".
As a son, Shota could not open her mouth to call Shibata's father.
Akiki calls Nobuyo Miss Shinshiro, not his sister.
In fact, the process of Yuri joining in has already revealed how the family was formed.
Yuri's first involvement in stealing is an important twist in the script.
This means that she officially becomes a member of the family and is no longer the recipient of assistance.
Shibata regards Yuri as Shota's "sister" and teaches Shota how to call Yuri and how to call himself, because they are not a natural family.
They are not related by blood.
Through the lens language of "Nobody Knows", Kore-eda uses changes such as scenes and costumes to present the passage of time.
At the beginning of the movie, Shibata always shouted cold.
In Nobuyoshi's embrace, he utters the warm line, "Hitting you because I love you is all a lie." If you really love, if you really love, you should do this (hug). "After that, a transition is made by using cicadas to indicate the arrival of summer.
The change of seasons from cold to hot means that the environment in Yuri changes from cold to warm, and then to feel the heat from the family.
The scene of the family going to the beach becomes a particularly moving moment in the movie.
That is, Grandma Hatsue's words that "the good times are not long", and the plot has unconsciously completed the turn.
Two consecutive accidents have hit the "thief family".
Like Thief of Time, the word "steal" is pun intended.
Ostensibly, the Shibata family likes to steal things, while secretly points to their family's affection, which is stolen back.
In the climax of the interrogation scene, the previous history of each family member was found.
It was Kore-eda who made a few clever choices here, directly sending "Thief Family" to the top of Cannes.
First, reject any flashback shots. Only the previous history of the character is explained through the lines, leaving the audience with room for interpretation and imagination, while not affecting the advancement of the plot and the ultimate transformation of the character.
While a typical drama film can last up to three hours, "Thief Family" has only two hours, thanks to Kore-eda's blank treatment.
Second, leave the scene to the actors.
Kore-eda, unlike many authors and directors, doesn't seem to have any desire to control. He can safely let the actors play freely and change the script according to the situation of the actors.
There is a scene in the middle where you lose your teeth, which is temporarily added because the young actor really lost his teeth during the filming process.
Actors with little experience can have a strong sense of realism.
For professional actors, there is a huge space to play.
Sakura Ando, who plays Nobuyo, confronts the camera in the interrogation room and interprets what an acting explosion is, and she really bursts the character's feelings from the set to the screen. Although she was not crowned cannes queen, Cannes judges such as Kate Blanchett praised her performance, which is undoubtedly a big plus for the film.
Third, do not force sensationalism.
In the end, the parting scene of "father and son" is the emotional culmination of the whole film, and after the foreshadowing, it is not too simple to earn the tears of the audience.
Let the actor cry, add close-ups, say some touching lines, and then ask a passing soundtrack, it is estimated that many people who are not directors know what to do.
Is it Kore-eda?
No tears, no touching farewell words, no soundtrack.
There was only a father's cry, and a belated "Daddy."
Without paying attention to details such as lines, I didn't realize that this was actually a trick for the audience, and if there was no soundtrack to create an atmosphere, maybe the movie didn't understand what was going on at the end of the movie, and naturally it wouldn't be so moving.
But good movies are not afraid of not having an audience. As long as someone can follow the story, naturally empathize, and trigger the most real emotions, rather than artificial tears, Kore-eda succeeds.
His film wins, it is "true".
The theme of Family of Thieves is about "home".
It's not bad to translate the title as "What a Home".
What exactly is a home?
Blood relations?
(Legal) Hukou certificate?
Kore-eda's answer was clear, not at all.
Through the Shibata family, he restored the appearance of a family.
And these family members' original families are not very happy. On the contrary, it is with people who are not related by blood that you can feel the warmth of home.
The basic condition for becoming a family should not be blood and legal definition, but mutual care, respect, and embrace.
If you have a child, you don't necessarily have to be a mother.
Some people may say, the movie, how to shoot it.
It is true that in reality most of the situations are blood relations supreme, but one of the functions of the movie is to dig out what is difficult to find in reality.
If everyone knows what's going on, then there's no point in shooting it.
It was Kore-eda who just discovered a reality, made it into a movie, and told the audience.
The reality is that outsiders can sometimes be closer than loved ones.
In November 2020, Shangguan News reported that an 88-year-old Mr. Ma Lao in Shanghai had left a property worth 3 million yuan to Mr. Xiao You, who was setting up a fruit stall downstairs, instead of his own family.
Afterwards, the family came out to say that this was not the case, but they were punched in the face by further interviews with the media. Ma Lao is very conscious, he and Xiao You have lived together, similar to the Shibata family in "Thief Family", forming a new family.
The incident sparked some controversy, with some people calling it "impersonal" for the elderly to do so.
But after watching "Thief Family", it is easy to understand how everything happened.
Deeper discussions can be extended to society.
That's a continuation of "Nobody Knows."
Both Shibata and Nobuyo steal and have an unknown history;
Yaji works in a custom shop, which is considered to be selling his body;
Every month, Hatsue would cheekily ask her ex-husband and the son of the cheating partner for money.
All the protagonists have disgusting behaviors, and they are easy to be unpopular in society. It was Kore-eda who boldly turned these characters into "all the good guys," and he no doubt wanted to tell the audience that some people look like bad guys, but they can also be good guys.
There is evil in this world, and there is no shortage of good.
The true events of "Nobody Knows", the prototype mother who abandoned her children is widely condemned, and Kore-eda wants to shoot in the opposite direction of public opinion, portraying the mother as a character who has no shortage of love for her children.
Because he found that the abandoned eldest son was very concerned about his sister, if the mother often used violence against them, the eldest son would probably have a certain violent tendency.
There can be such a director who is good at discovering the beauty of the world, and can boldly express it and shoot a good film.
Blessed are the Japanese.