It's Hirokazu Kore-eda's film, which always makes people feel immersed in it, not only because of the film's control over the shooting methods and pictures, but also because of the realism of every character in the film. In "The Thief Family", at first glance it looks like an ordinary family, but because of their secret thoughts, they become full and fresh.
At the beginning of the film, the little girl Lily, who was left unattended at home by her parents and who has been abused for many years, is adopted by the couple, Zhizhi and Shinyo. The family looks peaceful on the surface. The family of six is crowded into a traditional Japanese-style house. The family's source of income relies on the retirement pension of his grandmother, and the meager salary of the couple. Stealing the goods on the shelves to subsidize the family, Shindai's younger sister, Aki, earns some pocket money by playing sideballs in the porn industry.
Although poor, the first half of the film also contains many tender and nuanced fragments, and the daily life makes the family feel human.
In the middle of the film, some details made the audience a little confused. For example, Xiangtai never called Zhi Dad. For example, after her grandmother died, her family decided to bury her body in the toilet, and indifferently took out the pension from her grandmother's account. Xiangtai was arrested for theft. After being caught and injured, the family's first thought was not to raise medical expenses, but to pack up and sneak away... After the truth of the family gradually surfaced, it was Director Zhi who gave the audience a blow. The originally interdependent family members actually brought along with their own secrets and purposes.
It is not family affection that maintains family relationships, but to satisfy selfish desires. The members of the family ran away from the original family, and each carried a secret that could not be told to others, and formed this unrelated family. But these complex emotions do not mean that all the emotions of this building family are fictional. Those touching scenes are so real that it is impossible to doubt.
In the whole film, the scene that moved me the most was the scene where everyone was sitting outside watching fireworks. A family of young and old sat in front of the yard and heard the sound of fireworks. They looked up at the distant sky together. No one spoke, and there was no picture of fireworks. In the close-up, only the faces of every family member looking forward to the future.
This seemingly beautiful picture is heartbreaking. Such beauty, like fireworks, is fleeting.
In the last scene of the film, the little girl Lily returned to her native family to play alone. Nothing seemed to change. Lily gently hummed the nursery rhyme that Xindai taught her. When the curtain came to an end, the lights in the theater came on, and the audience's applause slowed for a while before it gradually began to warm.
When watching a movie, audiences who have been immersed in their emotions must think of a certain clip after walking out of the theater, and they can also recall it for a long time.
In the movie, I was deeply impressed by Ando Sakura, who played Nobuyo, and the little actor Shiro Hinoki, who played Shota. In the close-up of Ando Sakura in the police station, the emotions, expressions and movements are well mastered, and various emotions are mixed together. Although there are no lines, the shock to the audience is enough.
As a child star who has just appeared on the screen, the city cypress has a promising future and looks very pleasing. I look forward to more cooperation between him and Director Shizhi. And the characters created by Matsuoka Mayu are also more empathetic than those in "Little Forest". Mayu-chan grew rapidly under the guidance of Hirokazu Koeda.
At the meeting of the main creators of "The Thief Family" at the Shanghai Film Festival, director Hirokazu Koreeda was asked by the audience, "Why are you so obsessed with shooting family films, and what message do you want to convey to the public?" Director Zhizhi put the microphone on his chin, "This question is too difficult, yes, why do you want to photograph the family, why, I can't answer it..."
The audience laughed. In fact, in the previous interview, Director Zhizhi has already given the answer. From "Nobody Knows", "Never Stop Walking", to "Haijie Diary" and "The Thief's Family", the cruel society reflected by the warmth of family relationships will always exist when the characters at the bottom are torn apart by reality. With the tenderness of those details, it reminds the audience that love is the eternal direction.
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