Shoplifters(2018)
dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda
A family made of what gets left behind.
Where to watch: Free on Kanopy; Netflix, PrimeLetterboxd ↗
Osamu and his son shoplift to top up low-wage jobs. One cold night they bring home a neglected little girl and fold her into a family crammed into one tiny house in Tokyo. Whether they are a family at all is the question the film keeps unpicking. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2018.
Why it’s here
The film makes a crime out of survival and a family out of people the state forgot, and it never lets you settle on who the villain is. What's punk is that it treats the poor as full people, not cautionary tales, in one of the richest countries on earth. What's pedagogical is the question underneath: what do we count as a 'real' family, and who decides when a child is better off taken?
Where This Film Lives
- Setting
- Japan
Read Alongside
Books that share a topic, theme, or setting with this film.
Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima
Keiji Nakazawa
Hiroshima, drawn by a child who lived it.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Black Rain
Masuji Ibuse
Hiroshima's survivors. What the bomb left invisible.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Convenience Store Woman
Sayaka Murata
She loves her convenience store job. Society has a problem with that.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Hand to Mouth
Linda Tirado
Why do poor people make bad choices? She was one. Here's why.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
She worked the minimum wage jobs. The math doesn't work.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
Four generations of Koreans in Japan. Never fully belonging.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Salvage the Bones
Jesmyn Ward
A Mississippi family. A storm coming. Twelve days.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Silence
Shusaku Endo
A Jesuit in Japan. God is silent. People are dying.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST