A quick Japanese lesson for everyone.
万引き家族 – Manbiki Kazoku. 万引き – Manbiki means “Shoplifting” – 家族 Kazoku means “Family”

The English name for the new film by Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-Eda gives the impression that the operative word in the Japanese title is Manbiki. This is a lousy translation in my opinion, as shoplifting is a minor detail. In fact, Shoplifters is very much about Family. Not just this family, but family as a concept. What does it mean to be a family unit? What is the origin of that bond? I would have much preferred the English title to be the clunky literal translation Shoplifting Family, I would have even settled for just Family.

Now one could argue that almost all of Kore-Eda’s films are about family. Including his narrative feature debut Maborosi in 1995, Kore-Eda has made 13 films and almost all have centered on some kind of family unit. Shoplifters feels like a culmination of many of the themes explored in those earlier movies. If it weren’t for his deft hand and restraint as a story teller, you could accuse Kore-Eda of retracing his steps. Thankfully this is not the case and what we have here is one of the director’s most important and emotionally resonant films.

Osamu (Poet turned actor Lily Franky) enters a grocery story with his son Shota. We see them methodically stake out the area before Osamu gives the go ahead and Shota shoves snacks into his bag. On the way home they spot a young girl locked outside on her balcony by herself. Hungry and dirty, they offer her some food and eventually end up bringing her home. At home we meet Nobuyo, (Sakura Ando) the mother of the house, Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) a girl in her early 20’s, and the grandma Hatsue (Acting legend Kiki Kirin). It becomes clear that this family is not of the traditional sort and what holds them together is not something as tangible as blood.

At first there is reticence by the family to keep Yuri around. The risk is too great, but when Nobuya accompanies Osamu to Yuri’s home to return her, she overhears the girl’s mother fighting with her boyfriend. The mother says terrible things about her maternal regrets and this turns something in Nobuyo, who immediately retreats home and begins to introduce Yuri to her new family. They change her name to “Rin” and cut her hair, when the girl is reported missing. They buy her new clothes. Rin refuses to let her new mom get her a cute, yellow dress, asking “Are you going to hit me later?” She’s been conditioned to anticipate any moment of kindess to be followed by cruelty and violence. Later Nobuyo notices a scar on Rin’s arm when taking a bath and she shows her own forearm with an identical scar.

Money is hard to come by for this growing family and the tiny space they occupy in the grandmother’s name is barely enough for two people, let alone six. Osamu goes to work as a day labourer, Nobuyo works in a dry cleaner and pockets whatever valuables she finds while on duty, Aki works in a club doing private shows behind a mirror. Between these meager salaries and Hatsue’s pension, they get by. Shota teaches his new sister how to steal things while their parents are at work. They pass a pair of school kids and he tells her “School is for kids who can’t study at home.” The phrase “Work Share” is employed multiple times.

This is a concept that has been done before. This trail has been dug out countless times and a lesser artist would fall right into the grooves. Hirokazu Kore-Eda is not one to take the easiest way out and you can rest assured that if he chooses to take on a typical story, he has good reason. The subtlety and restraint displayed by the director as he guides this complicated family unit through this story is impressive. He refrains from telling us why these people have found eachother and stayed together, and rather focuses on what goes on between them that actually makes them a family.

The acting in this film is outstanding. Lily Franky and Sakura Ando are selfless artists. Free of ego and affectation, they are real people in a real world. Ando is particularly impressive in this role. A long time favourite actress of mine, she is beautiful, but has no qualms with looking ugly. Later in the film she questions, through tears, the inherent instincts and love that are expected of mothers in a devastating scene that hits the nail on the head. Lily Franky is terrific as always. Full of empathy and sadness, his clumsy physicality belies his real-life history as a poet and artist. Kiki Kirin is chameleon-like in her patented Oba-chan role. Toothless and mumbling, she is so different from usual that it took my lovely Japanese wife half an hour til she turned to me and asked “IS THAT KIKI KIRIN!?!?”

I cannot stress how much adore the films of Hirokazu Kore-Eda. He has blown life into the Japanese family film without straying into cliche or sentimentality. The fact that he can do it again and again is magnificent. He is in my humble opinion the greatest director of children (A quality I always cite as a sign of a great filmmaker) and this film is no exception. The two children actors navigate some pretty heavy content with sensitivity and understanding. It’s impossible to imagine these kids in their real lives, as Kore-Eda has written and directed them to be two very authentic characters with their own unspoken histories and secrets.

So the question I asked earlier. What is a family? What is the bond that holds these units together? After reading the notes I wrote during this film, one word stands out.

Love.

Love in all it’s selflessness. Free of thought, reason and blood. The delicate familial connections between these characters may come and go, but in the end you know that the 絆 Kizuna (Bond) between the six members is stronger than any thread of DNA could ever be.