Superbly original filmmaking from writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda, again focusing on a family unit, but here one of choice rather than simple blood-ties. Indeed, nothing simple about this story even after the third act explanations show up. Something that makes for a tricky write up without spoilers. What can be said is that Kore-eda is following a tradition going back to works by Dickens & Chaplin, who also found children in the trash, only to ‘adopt’ & raise them for their use as criminal accomplices. Here, it’s shoplifting. And not only ‘goods,’ but shoplifted lives, relationships & souls. And maybe not for the worse in a tight nuclear family of small-time con artists. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Older Sister, Rambunctious Boy & Newly Acquired Sad Little Sister, but with ‘quotes’ around each family position and pasts chasing them. Maybe there are advantages in day-to-day scrounging for food, clothing, housewares, squatter’s housing and gaming the welfare system. Kore-eda plays his fable very close to the vest, with immaculate compositions telling us no more than exactly what we need to know; withholding much we’d like to. And when he does fill in lacunae, everything clicks into place without a single disappointing answer. Something of a miracle, with outcomes ranging from bittersweet to softly tragic. Plus a cast that couldn’t be bettered, and in young Jyo Kairi, a worthy successor to little Jackie Coogan of Chaplin’s THE KID/’20. The film is a masterpiece.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Few Cannes’ Palme d’Or winners are as easy to get behind.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, Chaplin’s THE KID/’21. OR: For more Kore-eda, try STILL WALKING/’08, an earlier masterpiece.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brandon Tartikoff, Chairman of Paramount when the first ADDAMS FAMILY movie came out, completely missed the point (and the underlying joke of the whole series) when he described them as the ultimate dysfunctional family. Kore-eda would have known better. Maybe he could be coaxed into an Addams Family reboot?
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