criti-cally

"He is mistaken who believes he may pluck a single leaf from the laurel tree of art without paying for it with his life." ~Thomas Mann, from the book Tonio Kröger

# Themes

• The question in an artists life - whether to remain true to their practice, and live the life of an ascetic where you have to work hard with no guarantee you will succeed or to go mainstream where you will get money and fame but won't be living for true art.

• Sharad Tries to work hard and live like an ascetic at the command of Maai. But time frays Sharad's idealism. Asceticism in the hustling and bustling city of Mumbai is a difficult practice.

# Most Striking Details 1. Cinematography:

• Chaitanya Tamhane constructs Sharad's narrative with long takes and wide establishing shots. The camera stays still. The pacing is purposefully slow. This isn't a film about big plot twists or overblown emotion. The story unfolds in a low-key, naturalistic manner. Like Sharad, Chaitanya is pursuing a certain purity of vision. Which requires commitment from the viewer.

• The film is shot like a poetry on celluloid with its studied frames and immersive sound design.

2. Acting:

• Aditya Modak (plays Sharad Nerulkar) gives a melancholic performance. He transforms externally and internally along with the movie. It's astounding to watch and one can't believe that this is his acting debut as Sharad.

• We don't see Maai but we hear her with the same reverence that Sharad does because Maai's pursuit seems mythical.

3. Soundtrack:

• For a film about music, sounds plays a vital role in the movie. But it is expressed not just in the form of the Classical Music that the singers present. Sounds is used as a visual device in the movie.

• Take the instance in Act 2 when Sharad is grown up with a moustache. The Mumbai city is shown by its sound of the car horns and the city life with still imagery.

• The bike ride scenes when Shard is listening to Maai seems mythical of the mythical because of the sitar sounds playing in the background, and as Shard gets sick of, he removes the headphones, and we get to hear the same hustle and bustle of the city again.

# What The Movie Lacked?

• The pacing can get slow sometimes and requires patience from the viewers.

• There are questions that remain...was Sharad just talentless? I've heard that Hardwork can even beat talent where there is no talent. Sharad seemed dedicated to his art and worked hard. Still he wasn't able to succeed. While his fellow students were. What was the reason of Sharad's actual failure? Was it his style of music? Why couldn't he choose some other Form of Classical Music besides the Bandish?

## Verdict My Rating - 9/10 The movie won many awards and rightly so. The topic is touched was new and handled very well. The cinematography was poetic. It was rightly done.

This was the first movie by the Japanese director Hiorkazu Koreeda that I've seen, and I was blown away. Koreeda, like his earlier works, continues his exploration of the true meaning of family in Shoplifters. This is breathtaking movie evokes so many emotions in the audiences and it does it so well, that its very hard not to connect to the Shibata Family. This is the second international movie this year I have seen about the repressed and the poor trying to live their lives, the first being Parasite. And it goes without saying, if you loved that one, then you'll love this one even more as Shoplifters is definitely more realistic and more powerful as a story.

Shoplifters focusses on marginalized people existing on the fringes of Japanese society who barely eke out a living by engaging in activities that skirt the letter of the law. It is the story of flawed people who have patched together a working "family" of outcasts who believe that the impulse to survive and create a nurturing environment is more important than strict adherence to society's norms and blood relations.

The film opens in a supermarket where Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky), a middle-aged, part-time construction worker, is seen exchanging strange hand signals with a pre-teenage boy, Shota (Jyo Kairi), who seems to regard what is going on as a family outing. It quickly becomes apparent that this is no ordinary family shopping spree but an exercise in shoplifting, as we watch Shota casually throw items from the shelves into his shopping bag when no one is looking. Justifying their flouting of the law, Osamu says that if the goods are in the store, it means that they do not belong to anyone, and tells Shota that they are stealing the items only as a means of helping the family. Much later when questioned about stealing by the authorities, sadly he says that shoplifting was the only skill he had to teach the boy.

Osamu, as it is gradually revealed, is the part of a household consisting of himself and wife Noboyu Shibata (Sakura Ando), wife's teenaged sister (but from a different mother) Aki Shibata (Mayu Matsuoka), Osamu and Noboyu's young son Shota, and grandma Hatsue Shibata (the late Kirin Kiki), all living in a small, cluttered apartment outside of Tokyo, scattered with toys and knick-knacks everywhere, barely providing the family with enough room to eat and sleep.

This warm but abnormal family is slowly revealed to be conjoined in ways we did not expect. The catalyst for this is dad and son bringing home a neglected 5-year-old girl, by the name of Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), they come across abandoned on an apartment balcony on a freezing winter night. The girl comes home with them, and slots into the family, a pattern, we slowly realize, that has been repeated in the past. Granny was 'picked up,' and the son seems to have arrived by similar means. Their warmth and humanity is at odds with the illegality and disregard for social mores. Society judges such people, but by allowing us intimacy with them, Koreeda shows how society is also judged by them - and found wanting.

Shoplifters for its most part is focused on this families daily life and the problems they face emphasizing on their bonds, their empathy and their poverty. The slow revelation of the family's background, the naturalistic interactions, the judicious spacing of shocks and surprises, are all evidence of a master filmmaker in perfect sync with his material. Throughout the entire film, Koreeda does not stand in judgement of his characters but simple observes the trajectory of their life. Even when he moves into darker territory in the film's last section, its main focus remains on the humanity of the characters. When Noboyu disposes of an item that is a painful reminder for Yuri about the family that abused her, she gives her a big hug, explaining that when people love each other, they give them hugs and do not hit them. In an exquisite moment, Yuri places her hand on Noboyu's face who lets it remain there for a few minutes. These are flawed individuals and Koreeda does not avert a critical gaze from their individual responsibility.

While Shoplifters contains elements that are painful to watch, what we take with us is Koreeda's empathy displayed in the beauty of small moments: The joy of trips to the beach and coming of age for Shota and Osamu handling it so humorously, the sharing of cold noodles on a humid summer day and the long repressed sexual intimacy that follows between partners, the expression on the faces of young children aware, perhaps for the first time, that they are loved; and the entire family listening to, but not seeing, a firework display (what a metaphor for this family's peripheral status!).

The real joy comes from the way the whole thing gels and shimmers, and provides steely insight on contemporary Japanese society, and the human condition. This sense of realism and joy in small moments of life of its characters is communicated with simple gestures like the slurping sounds of noodles as the family eats dinner together, the way they follow small cultural beliefs and give the young girl Yuri salt to lick before bed so she doesn't wet the bed in the night, or the way Grandma hits a small metallic cup in honor of her dead husband every morning and Aki introduces Yuri to her new hair and name sitting in front of the mirror. It is through such small scenes that we can see clearly, that poverty is everywhere, but you don't need money or be related by blood to be a family.

The cinematography is extraordinary, with some surprising long shots, close-ups and beautiful shots from tight angles. The editing is speechless, connecting numerous scenes just seamlessly. Not a single minute is wasted, and the film is largely intense and arresting. Together with the brilliant performances from the ensemble cast, the result is a satisfying and deeply affecting drama on lower class in Japan.

The performances are sublime and it's more of a team effort as every character completes another and ultimately form an arc that tells the story in a brilliant way. Franky Lily and Kirin Kiki both are tonally perfect here. Koreeda shows that he has a deft touch with child actors. The maturity in the performance of both the child actors, Jyo Kairi and Miyu Sasaki is stunning. Sakura Ando is outstanding as the mother-figure, made wise by her bitter experiences but also upbeat in her approach to life. Her threat to kill a minor character is chilling. One scene, where she performs straight to camera, answering a question on what her 'children' called her, rips your heart out.

Overall in a breath taking display of realism, Shoplifters tells a touching story that's seemingly simple at first sight but gets nuances to a point but the film sticks to its realism and dismantles the social norms with such grace, offering a new insight to a world unknown to most, where people long for family love and they're desperate to have someone to call family, on account of the raw emotions it conveys. The film explores big questions on living a good life and taking responsibility in an uncaring society. Shoplifters is a rare exercise of social realism and it gets its message across so elegantly making it filmmaking at its finest.

Shoplifters is a simply stunning film and must watch for all.