It was Hirokazu Koreeda who once said: Movies should express everyday life as much as possible, rather than speak out bluntly. Recalling the director's previous works, it is often like eating a bowl of light and hearty tea and rice, leaving an aftertaste that lasts for a long time. Showing the most essential and true face of life, it constitutes a unique and lasting feature, and the fetters of family are always the important motifs running through Hirokazu Kore-eda's works, including love and death. What I see in the book are the most ordinary and intimate daily moments, which bring the most sincere touch and warmth.
As the mainstay of today's Japanese movies, it is Hirokazu Koreeda who has inherited the temperament and techniques of traditional Japanese family movies. , but in recent years, everyone has seen that the director is trying to find a breakthrough, but he has not abandoned the spiritual core and shooting style of the previous films, and when it comes to "The Thief's Family", it will undoubtedly usher in a meeting point, an excessive carrier that goes with the flow.
Compared with the story or the plot, Hirokazu-eda prefers to focus the audience's attention more on the three-dimensional characters in the film, like a mirror image, from which to find and feel the experience and emotion that belong to him, "The Thief Family" still continues the director's previous video style and the ever-changing "family theme". It is presented as unpretentious as a documentary, and it moves in an orderly manner, but this time it does not play the cohesion of the warm card, but like a Use a light stone to break a "home" that seems to be solidified and actually hides a crisis to pieces.
The rhythm is smooth and eloquent. It seems dull and boring, but it actually accumulates amazing and heavy power without any tricks, and there is no design or arrangement that intentionally attracts or deliberately stimulates the audience's emotions, even in the middle. The unexpected turning point also seems to be a matter of course, the shooting is very advanced, there is no superfluous component, it is more restrained and calm than before, and the level is wider, trying to achieve a seemingly absolute objective presentation, even a bit deviating from it. audience. The details are used to awaken the memory of the audience who are familiar with his works and lead into the situation in the film, forming a certain echo and association with the previous film clips.
The sisters facing the sea in "Haijie Diary", the father and son fishing on the balcony in "Like Father Like Son", the suitcase buried in the company of the plane in "Nobody Knows", and the same young age as Ming Shota, who is about to be forced to mature, and "intruders" (the sister of Haijie, the mother and son who are walking, the girl who is nobody) who are slowly integrating. In "Like Father Like Son", it is Hirokazu Koreeda who has embodied a simple and clear relationship between the upper and lower classes, resulting in the embodiment of the difference in the relationship between father and son (closeness and distance). The relationship between them and the influence of family formation are discussed.
Whether the blood relationship between parents and children is the constant or only standard for maintaining family relationships, blood relationship is undoubtedly the cornerstone of traditional family values that cannot be abandoned, but it is undeniable that emotion is an important factor in maintaining long-term and stable family relationships and can play a positive role, but when it comes to In "The Thief Family", Hirokazu Kore-eda focuses on a group of "family" living at the bottom. Compared with the obvious parent-child relationship between the two families in "Like Father Like Son", "The Thief Family" hides and interweaves more relationships and clues. The first half is like a building block that is slowly superimposed layer by layer, and suddenly reached out and removed one in the middle, and the low-key shock emerged from the complete collapse of the building block (home).
The truth of this family surfaced with the "death of grandma", and it was Hirokazu Koreeda who did not express or explain too much. Just use a few words instead, leaving more room for reverie for the audience to ponder and think. The two murderers, the abandoned grandmother, the abused girl, the rescued Shota, and the Aki working in the Fengyue site, they are all people on the fringes of society. They warm, care for and rely on each other. The "relatives" who have no blood relationship are destined to live under the same roof, play their respective family roles, and live like ants.
They seem to live together in harmony and happiness, but as the mystery is gradually revealed, whether it is social rules, hard life or human weakness, they are testing the stability and firmness of this family. Death is only a fuse, and all aspects The intervention of factors impacted and destroyed this home, but we can still experience the faint and deep emotions, Xindai's tears and notification, Zhizhi's apology and car chase, grandma's "Thank you", Xiangtai's "Dad" (Whisper softly, hitting people's hearts), in the end, the little girl's words and expressions, they will never be able to get rid of the emotional fetters and shared memories established in the process of getting along in the past.
Money is the basic condition for survival, and it is also the main reason for "stealing". Being able to survive is the foundation of everything. This "home" is like a microcosm of the bottom class in society. Seeing the difficulty of survival and the indifference of the outside world, it is a branch of There has never been a very sharp and bitter criticism in Yuhe's films. Some are just observations and reflections from the perspective of a bystander. From the film, we can see that the son of a superior grandmother's ex-husband formed another family to cover up her daughter's runaway. In fact, the decent lie about studying abroad is actually a differential treatment of half-parents, and the hypocrisy is to whitewash the darkness of human nature and maintain identity and face.
On the other hand, the Xindai family, who was worried about money, couldn't even put their identity on the table, and their dignity was not worth mentioning in the face of a full stomach and a living. "It's okay, stealing will always be caught." Many people often talk about it: Poverty limits our imagination. Similarly, poverty can also limit the absorption of nutrients in the spiritual world. Living a limited and humble life is also an unstable factor in this family. The sentence "I can only teach them these things", and the sentence "Children can't rely on us alone" in Xindai can be seen. Although I can feel the warmth from their words and smiles, it is still hard to resist the cruelty of the facts.
Shota and sister can see the sea and the universe from the marbles, like a hope of innocence and imagination that has not been wiped out by the cruel and cold reality, but life is quenching this flame step by step, leaving this family. I don't know if it's good or bad for them. Children need to break through the prison at the bottom. They have no previous convictions and have a future. But what is certain is that the two little kids will always remember and hold the home that can't see fireworks but has warmth that was once held by people who had no relationship at all.
Characters without a trace have always been the focus of Hirokazu Kore-eda's films, and the limelight has even overshadowed the daily plot. Those full images can always remain deeply in my mind. What I see from the speech and behavior is not the reading. The characters of the lines are people who live enough to be real. In "The Thief's Family", they have human flaws and are full of goodwill, complex and multi-faceted.
The children's excellent performance as always, still touched me a lot. Xiang Tai is very similar to Ming Tai in terms of appearance, dress and the temperament of a little adult. I can't help but sigh again. They are living in injustice and hardship. We were forced to grow up early, and we couldn't see the innocence and joy that children of the same age should have on our calm and introverted faces. Fate made them lose prematurely. How lucky we are.
The unforgettable episode of Ando Sakura's forbearance of tears in her emotional part can be said to be the most heart-piercing performance I have seen this year. When asked what the child called her, I could see that the emotions surged up, but it didn't. It was clearly revealed, but was constantly wiped away with his hands. The red eyes and wet tears were more silent than sound at this moment.
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