Movie #29 2020: Shoplifters (2018)

This is an ensemble movie many people in the Western world may not have heard of. I have to confess, after watching Parasite I made a point of watching more films made in Asia, and my first dip into that was to watch Shoplifters.

The synopsis for this movie is as follows:

This Palme d’Or winning drama is a poignant love-letter to family, exploring the bonds that unite an unlikely gang of shoplifters.

Amazon Prime Video

What is most intriguing is that they mention that this group of people are a “gang of shoplifters”. To be honest, the title itself is kind of misleading too. It’s true that they are a family who shoplift together, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what this movie is. It’s actually not about their shoplifting misdemeanours at all, although it all ties together and comes back to that in the film’s closing sequences.

To hone in on it’s closing sequence while we are there: gosh, it was so heartbreaking. It is possibly one of the most poignant endings to a movie I’ve ever seen. I can’t spoil it for anyone of course, but just know that if you don’t feel something after watching it then you must be a sociopath.

What this movie does just as well as Parasite is tell a story. It is a magnificent piece of storytelling, albeit being very different to Bong Joon Ho‘s instant classic. Perhaps I shouldn’t be comparing these movies just because they were made in Asia (this one being set in Japan), but the reason I do so is because I want to point out how differently stories seem to be told in the Eastern hemisphere.

This is not a slight on Western cinema, not by a long shot. Of course, there are many, many great storytellers based in the West. Tarantino, Scorsese, Gerwig, Hitchcock… But what this movie seems to be is much more complex in regards to how it gets to it’s finale. There are so many twists and turns that the viewer just can not predict. There’s a specific sequence in which we find out what occurred in the main characters’ pasts that blew me away. What made it so successful is that you don’t even stop to think about what may have happened previously the entire time, so when the truth is revealed it is all the more effective.

Finally, what you get from this movie is an emotional attachment to the characters. Despite them being criminals when it comes down to it, all you want is the best for them. I certainly feel like part of the family after watching it.

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