This article contains a lot of spoilers.
I have read it twice, and if there are any omissions, please point out.
At first, I liked the two films of Hirokazu Kore-eda, "Walking Nonstop" and "Deeper than the Sea". I was most impressed by the director's use of the main length of the film to tell the story of the characters for a day or even a night. In this process, life is trivial and real. The texture is very impressive.
The time of the film "The Thief Family", at first glance, is scattered throughout the four seasons of the year, starting from winter to the next winter. But if you pay attention, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that, except for the highlight of the summer - which is about 8 days according to my calculation - the stories in other seasons are almost two consecutive days, and the inner time of the movie is very intact. . Undoubtedly, this is in line with a typical creative methodology of Hirokazu Koreeda-- close to the pace of life as much as possible.
Coherent and complete inner time:
Now, let's start with the time. If you are interested, you may listen to me briefly describe the continuous story timeline in the winter, spring, autumn and winter seasons of the film. It is also convenient for everyone to quickly compare some details.
winter:
Day: The opening scene of the supermarket theft;
Night: Picked up little sister Yuri;
Chen: My little sister wets the bed, and my father steps on his toenails in his shoes at work;
Day: A civil servant came to the house, Xiangta took her sister to the grocery store to steal shampoo;
Night: The younger sister eats gluten and salt, and the father hurts his foot;
Day: Grandma and Aji go out to withdraw money, talk like girlfriends while eating, Aji goes to a custom shop, grandma plays marbles, father, brother and sister steal fishing rods;
Night: Younger sister Yuri waits for her brother Shota, who has not returned home, Shota talks to her father in the old car;
Winter is two and a half days in a row.
spring:
Day: The two parents chat about the fish pond; the younger sister goes on TV and gets a haircut;
Day: Brother and sister, grandma, and mother go to the supermarket to buy swimsuits; father and Aki talk about sex at home; mother Nobuyo and sister Yuri take a bath and compare the scars;
Evening: My sister's clothes are on fire, bid farewell to the past;
Spring is two consecutive days.
autumn:
Day: Aki returns to the home of no one;
Day: father and son fishing; father and son meet prison mother;
Autumn is a fragment of two days.
winter:
Night: Father and son eat noodles, build a snowman, share a bed and talk back to back;
Day: The father sends the son; Yuri plays and hums on the balcony.
Winter is continuous from the night of the previous day to the morning of the next day.
Incidentally, in the summer, the important transition is also a day. It starts with the cicada shelling out and ends with watching the invisible fireworks. Within a day, Xiangtai began to change his heart; Xindai's mother lost her job to keep Yuri; Grandma's story line revealed Yaji's life; Yaji and Mr. No. 4 emotional development; Dad performs magic tricks, the whole family listens to fireworks... The plot density in this summer day is the largest in the whole film.
Fate and Fate:
Mom Nobuyo and daughter Yuri (actually Shuri, but let's call her the way a thief family calls her) have the same scars, dad and son Shota also have a right foot injury, Aki and Mr. 4's right hand There are scars left by self-abuse. The relationship between father and mother is reflected in the relationship between Aki and Mr. 4. When it comes to the fate of characters, many works of art more or less show the tendency of fate and reincarnation.
Xindai's Perseverance:
The biggest similarity between mother Nobuyo and daughter Yuri is that they are both victims of abuse. In a scene in the bathroom, we see the two have the same scars on their arms.
Like Yuri, Nobunyo tells the police at the end of the credits that the way her mother treated her affected her.
When Yuri touched her scar, Nobunyo didn't resist at all. In contrast, at her biological mother, Yuri was reprimanded for touching her scar.
In the family of the thief Shibata, she would say "I'm sorry", but after her mother repeatedly asked for an apology, she never said "I'm sorry".
The scene of Yuri's encounter at home is followed by the scene of Shinyo's interrogation. She said that this could not be Yuri's own choice, it was just the wishful thinking of her biological mother.
The same point of view is repeated many times in the film, and the most important thing is the two dialogues with grandma.
One time, grandma, mother, brother and sister in spring went to a big supermarket. On the way, Xindai said, "We were chosen by her." Children of incompetent parents" is more "legitimate". The second time, at the seaside, Xindai once again talked to his grandmother about the topic of a family without blood. She suffers from infertility and has an unqualified mother. She always believes that not everyone who has given birth to a child is qualified to be a parent.
Then the police question hit her. "What do you call you? Mom? Mom?"
"What's your name? What's your name?"
She said it twice, the first time she only saw her mouth move and barely made a sound.
Unspeakable words:
There are two impressive unspoken words in the film. This is also a relatively straightforward expression of the director Hirokazu Koreeda who restrained his emotions.
One is "Thank you" from grandma on the beach, and "Dad" from Xiangtai on the bus away.
Grandma once said in a chat with Xindai, "It's like I chose you, and you are willing to be dragged down by me." Here, as a person abandoned by her husband, Grandma Shibata Hatsue was worried about dying of loneliness, and exchanged pensions for children and grandchildren. of family bliss. On the beach, with the help of grandma's subjective perspective, we saw the scene of a family of five playing in the water (the perspective of the people under the umbrella of the Chinese version of the poster comes from this). It and the last unseen fireworks constitute the pinnacle of the whole film's beauty. Invisible fireworks, unspoken gratitude, this is the imperfect life of ordinary people scattered with regrets.
The cycle of life:
The reason why the seaside has reached the peak of beauty is because in the next scene, her sister Yuri's tooth fell out, and then she found out that her grandmother passed away. Immediately afterwards, the body was buried in the house, the pension was taken, the warm coat was torn off, and the conditions for the bonding of the family began to be exposed nakedly. Father and mother, almost no time to be sad. The saddest thing is Aji, who is also an abandoned person. Before burying the body, a picture confessed that Aji is the one who has the closest emotional connection with his grandmother at home. The left half of the composition is a close-up foreground of Aki looking sad, and the right half is the out-of-focus house space. It is said that my sister lost her teeth by accident during filming. The director took the opportunity to make such a design, which is really wonderful.
"I don't want to die silently":
This is the wish that my grandmother mentioned when eating in winter. Grandma almost failed to get her wish and was secretly buried in the house. But in the end it became social news...
Sad.
Xiangtai's growth:
Burying the corpse, withdrawing money, and the 30,000 yen*N saved by grandma were all watched by Xiangtai. And from the beginning of summer, Xiangtai began to grow.
The first scene of summer is Xiangtai and her sister catching cicadas and observing the cicadas shedding, indicating that Xiangtai has also begun to transform; then, the education of the grocery store grandfather; the seaside view of the breast; It doesn't belong to anyone" logic; the scene of Dad smashing the car window further catalyzed the emergence of Shotai's social morality; until he and his sister saw the death of the grandfather of the grocery store, and saw that the younger sister began to steal actively, Shotai chose to expose her protection at this juncture Sister, at the same time toppling all this seemingly peaceful.
Abandoned People - Hatsue and Aki:
As mentioned earlier, Aji and her grandmother are both abandoned, and Aji's connection with everyone mainly depends on her connection with her grandmother.
With others, it's easy to see.
Simple and rude: Yu Xindai, equivalent to the younger generation of the customs industry; Yu thief father, the communication actually started secretly around her No. 4 Mr. 4; Yu Yuli, she regarded Yuli as a little sister without blood rather than blood; Yu Xiang Tai contributed to the sexual enlightenment from the young lady. The directors almost each use a scene to explain, no more, no less, impartiality, and everyone has a share.
But her relationship with her grandmother is very good.
They may have met at Grandpa's funeral. Grandma Hatsue was abandoned by her husband, and grandma was the ex-wife of Aki's father's stepfather - a bit messy, but in short, Aki and grandma have no blood relationship at all.
And Aki's father is willing to give grandma 30,000 yen a month, the reason is "I'm sorry, my mother robbed your husband".
Do you give grandma 30,000 yen a month for this reason? This is a small 2,000 RMB.
According to Aji's father's tone and performance details, it is not difficult to see that Aji's father obviously knew that his daughter was with grandma. And this Aki mother, I think she doesn't care - maybe she knows or maybe doesn't know, but in short, she doesn't care, it is very likely that she and Aki's father are also remarried (it's a family full of stepfathers and stepmothers, maybe it's the branch The director took the opportunity to reflect a reasonable set of social phenomena), Aki is not her biological daughter.
Therefore, Aki cannot get the parental love she deserves, especially maternal love. She hates this little sister Saka who is loved by thousands of people. So she came together with Grandma Hatsae, two abandoned women. Grandma gave her the missing maternal love, and because they had a common experience of being abandoned, the two talked like sisters. The two grandparents, who have no blood relatives, have such a vivid emotional connection, which once again verifies Xindai's point of view.
Think of the police questioning Xindai for abandoning her grandmother. Xindai said, "I picked her up. Someone else should have abandoned her."
Mother Nobuyo and younger sister Yuri were both abused, and grandmother Hatsue and Aki were both abandoned.
Hall of Fame:
The members of the thief family in the film each have their own past, and director Shizhi also put a lot of thought into the names of the characters. During the conversation between grandma and Aji's best friend, she mentioned for the first time that Aji used the name "Saxiang" in the custom shop, and grandma said "you are really bad enough" - Aji used the name of her sister she didn't like As a "stage name"; at home, Yaji would name her sister who had cut her hair, how about "Saxiang", it seems that she wants this bloodless little sister Yuri to be her own sister; When Mr. 4 talked about his sister, she simply told the story of Koyuri.
At the end of the film, the revealing of the name Xiangtai comes from the police questioning the thief's father, but looking back, when the uneducated thief's father describes his name to the registered police officer, he describes the word Xiangtai in the most detailed way, because this It's his own name. Perhaps the explanation is that the thief father who could not be a father gave his name to the boy he picked up to satisfy his desire for inheritance.
Social issues under the family shell:
Speaking of Xiangtai's growth, since Xiangtai fell to the foot and forced the small family to have a strong relationship with the external society, the originally closed years were broken, and the film quickly upgraded from a family structure to a social structure. Director Fang Zhi It is not to show the little luck that the people at the bottom help each other to survive, but to reveal social problems.
The mother and father, the backbone of the family, have flaws in the original family, have a gray record, and have not received a good education. Because the author is not very familiar with Japanese society, I dare not speculate. The guess is that people with gray records are difficult to find decent jobs, the social error tolerance rate is low, one wrong step is irreversible, social pressure is too great, and so on. Of course, the roles of parents and mothers have the disadvantage of being delicious and lazy.
Readers who are interested in director Hirokazu Koreeda can appreciate his other works from this perspective on the social issues wrapped in the shell of the family.
The thief and the good father:
Picking up children and stealing things has a unified guiding ideology in the thief dad, he believes that "things in public spaces belong to no one". This leads to his obvious meanness - stealing, and controversial nobility - that your biological family treats you badly, so I'll take care of you.
When questioned by police, the thief's father, who is poor in Chinese and does not speak English, said "I have nothing else to teach them" other than stealing, his only livelihood skill. But in fact, whether it is the special way of eating instant noodles, or the perception of Xiangtai's adolescent performance, and find the right time to guide him, imagine his delicate and keen eyes behind the child, can you say that he is not a good father?
So, on the night after building the snowman, the kind and restrained director arranged for the father and son who shared the bed to have a back-to-back conversation with a man. It should be noted here that they have been separated for about half a year since the summer. Fishing and other activities, but not getting along every day, the two are slightly rusty.
It started with "going back tomorrow?" - isn't it nonsense, but it sounds familiar. Our parents, when we go home for the holidays, would say similar things before we leave, just like people who don't know well enough to talk to. Xiangtai then asked again, did you guys want to leave me and slip away at that time?
What can dad say? He can only say sorry. He himself felt unworthy to be this self-righteous father.
"Dad, I'm going to be my uncle again."
Insert a sentence, recall, when the father and son went to see their mother in prison in the autumn, the mother said what color was the car of Xiangtai they picked up?
Back in the early morning of the next day, at the farewell before the stop sign, what color did Dad wear for Xiangtai?
The red one.
Some people may think that this is a coincidence, but this one is not the only one of the thief's father's clothes. As a very important scene, the director must have considered the father's clothes.
Xiang Tai's life experience:
Speaking of Xiangtai's life experience, either the parents were careless, or the parents deliberately put the child in a closed car and was taken away by the thief father who stole from the broken window. Although the possibility of intentional is small, according to the logic of the thief's parents, you are more worthy of being his parents than us, and it can also explain their motives for taking Xiao Xiangtai away.
So it is not surprising that Xiangtai, who was picked up in the car, likes to be alone in the car, and finally found herself in the car, and no longer cooperates with her father to break the window and steal the bag as he found himself back then.
A very interesting detail. The place where Xiang Tai was picked up is also a marble hall. It is very likely that the couple also loves to play marbles. They have the same hobbies and hobbies as grandma. . Even, they probably met their grandmother in the pinball hall, and they formed the main frame of the thief family.
Aki's doubts:
Therefore, I can also answer the doubts of Aji here. How do you connect everyone together? money? physiological? emotion? When the police told her that her grandmother took money from her parents every month, she was instantly stunned.
Grandma just takes money under the guise of Aki?
She may not know that grandma keeps stacks of 30,000 cash for everyone, but she should be able to understand the withdrawal password that grandma said intentionally or unintentionally when withdrawing money with her.
Whether intentional or not, this is the family-like love and trust between grandma and Aji, the unrelated grandparents.
The bond of a lifetime:
The last scene at the end of the film is the balcony where Dad and Shota and sister Yuri met at the beginning of the film. On the balcony, my sister sang a ditty while playing glass marbles.
She grew up in a family where her daughter was missing for two months without reporting to the police, but fortunately she still knew that she cared about her brother who didn't come home.
Now, she will continue to grow up around her biological mother who doesn't love her.
She used to play at home, but her mother, who was busy with makeup to cover up her scars, had no intention of listening to her saying that she saw the sea and the universe inside.
The children's song she sang was the "12345" children's song that her mother sang to her in the bathroom.
This is the bond that the thief family left her.
cry well? I don't want - the moderator is director Hirokazu Kore-eda:
Multiple sources mentioned that in the last scene, sister Yuri seemed to see something when she was playing marbles, so she lay on the balcony and looked out.
She saw the thief's father who had just sprinted to chase the bus, and Yuri called out "Dad" to him.
This scene was filmed, but the director abandoned this setting that made the audience cry very much in the editing, and maintained his restraint throughout the film, which is really admirable.
Every detail of a good film is worth pondering. In my opinion, this film has almost no nonsense, and pays attention to surprises everywhere.
There are many details that can be written, and everyone is welcome to participate in the exploration.
Like my submission. Grandma's toenails: Grandma's toenails clipped at the dinner table and popped into Dad's shoes. This design has three functions: 1. The home is small and crowded; 2. According to my father's feedback, it is not a polite way of saying "it's okay", but a little anger, which shows that the family is close and doesn't take offense. Strange, what is there to say, the audience even thought that the father was the son of grandma at the beginning; 3, it may also inspired the idea of he intentionally injured his foot on this day.
PS says "there is almost no nonsense", and there are also "idle writing" that I can't understand. For example, between spring and summer, there is a scene where children greet a speedboat passing by, and I don't understand the meaning. Discussions are also welcome.
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