This question is not difficult for most people to answer. We might as well not rush to answer it, but imagine what it would be like if we had such a family around us, or if we lived in such a family ourselves.

The story of Thieves' Family revolves around such a family. The film won the 20 18 Cannes Palme d 'Or Award, and was shortlisted for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and the Japan Film Academy Award for Best Film. Although director Hirokazu Koreeda can be said to be a frequent visitor to the "Palme d 'Or Award", his directing style is plain and realistic, and most of his plays avoid strong direct contradictions, which has the characteristics of documentary. Lack of commercialization led to the low box office of most of his films. As its highest-grossing work, The Thieves Family earned14.09 million dollars at the domestic box office. Can only say that its performance is average, and there are not many friends around.

The following is the plot

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In a supermarket, a man, Chai Tian, and a child, Mrs. Chai Tian, came in to steal again. I don't know how many times they have visited. I saw that under the cover of Aji, Shota skillfully threw bags of snacks into his backpack.

When they go home at night, they buy coke cakes in the street. When they walked, they saw the little girl locked on the terrace (first floor) of the roadside apartment again. The girl's parents often seem to be away from home, so the father and son couldn't bear to see her go hungry, so they took her home.

In addition to Aji and Xiangtai, Chai Tian's family still lives in Xintai, with her sister Ji Ya and grandma. In fact, this house belongs to grandma alone, and we are not related by blood, so we have been "boarding" here for a long time. In order to avoid suspicion, everyone goes deep and simple, and sometimes special people come to the door and even secretly evacuate from the back door.

The little girl said her name was Yuri. Although Yuli is five years old, she is very thin. Grandma saw many scars on Yuli, and Yuli only said that she accidentally knocked them off.

After dinner, Shindai asked Aji to take him home quickly. The two of them walked from the room to the apartment window, holding the couch, and heard a quarrel coming from inside. The woman asked loudly, "Do you think I wanted to have this baby from the beginning?" Later, the letter changed his mind and left Yuli.

The next day, Shindai went to work in the laundry room. She often took away some items left by customers in her clothes. Archie went to work on the construction site. He hurt his foot this time, so he stayed at home for a few days.

Archie came to a fishing gear shop with crutches and Shota to steal, and Yuri helped this time. On the way home, Shota said there was no need to take Yuri with him. Archie said that Yuri is Shota's sister and wants to help each other. Shota ran away without saying anything. In the evening, Archie found Shota in an abandoned car, persuaded him to regard Ling as his sister, and then suddenly hinted that Shota would call his father. Shota was so proud that he didn't agree.

On the way home, Shota told his father the story of the little black fish. This is a story about a little black fish as an "eye", leading a weak little red fish to swim together, turning into a "big fish" to scare away predators and swim freely in the sea.

One day two months later, everyone saw the news of Yuli on TV. It turns out that Yuri's real name is in the tree. Strangely, it was not the parents in the tree who called the police, but the neighbors, because they had not seen Yuli for two weeks in a row. A Zhi was worried about getting into trouble, and planned to call the tree's home alone, but Shindai let the tree choose to stay, and finally the tree stayed.

In order to hide people's eyes and ears, everyone cut the tree's hair and gave it a new name, Ling. Ji Ya took Ling, who had her hair cut, to look in the mirror and quietly told Ling that she had another name, Shayexiang, which was the stage name of Ji Ya working in a genre shop. Ling told Ji Ya that she preferred the name Ling.

Grandma made new clothes for Ling, and at the same time, in order to destroy the evidence, Shindai burned the clothes that Ling wore when she first came home. She told Ling that parents said they beat their children because they liked them, which was just an excuse.

Grandma will visit her ex-husband's (deceased) home every month, and her ex-husband's stepson's family will give her 30 thousand yen in alimony every month. This time, she happened to meet her youngest daughter, Sha Yexiang, who went out to school. Grandma asked about her eldest daughter by the way. In fact, her eldest daughter is Ji Ya. The stepson and his wife hid the fact that Ji Ya ran away from home, but said that she was studying in Australia now, but grandma just smiled and didn't reveal it.

Began to teach Ling to steal together. This time they came to a convenience store they frequented. Under the cover of Liu, Ling stole two sweets. When he was about to leave, the shopkeeper secretly stopped Shota. He handed Shota two popsicles and told him not to let his sister do it again-the shopkeeper always knew Shota's behavior.

The benefits of the new laundry are getting worse. The boss decided to fire an employee, and the workers threatened Xintai with what they knew about Ling. Xinda has no choice but to resign. Before leaving, Shindai threatened the workers that if she told anyone about bullying, she would definitely kill her. Aji's leg injury has healed, but he is too lazy to go back to work on the construction site. Therefore, Aji suggested that Xintai get his job back and take Ji Ya with him, but Xintai refused. That night, fireworks were set off outside the door, and the family could not go out, so they sat in the yard together, listening to the sound of fireworks outside, as if they were there.

Summer is coming, and the family is going to play at the seaside. Sitting on the beach, Shindai watched the family playing in the waves and asked grandma if it would be better if the family didn't have such a relationship. Grandma said it wouldn't last long, so we had to muddle along. After Xin Dai joined in the water play, grandma looked at it from a distance and lamented that she was really old now. Looking at the happy figure of the family, she silently said "thank you".

Time passed gradually. One morning, Ling found that she had lost a tooth, so she told her to throw it on the roof. At this time, there was a commotion in the room, only to find that grandma had lost her breath. Archie is about to call an ambulance. In order to stop the investigation, Shindai quickly stopped him. Nobody had the money to cremate grandma, so he planned to bury her in the yard. After busy, Archie looked a little trance, only said that if he died in the future, he would be buried in the yard.

Xintai took Shota to get grandma's pension. On the way home, Shota asked if stealing was wrong. Archie said that the things on the shelf don't belong to anyone. Shindai said impatiently that it shouldn't matter that he didn't steal the bankruptcy. While they were walking, suddenly a roadside vendor shouted whether the mother wanted to buy some coke cakes for her children. Shindai became happy immediately after listening to it.

At home, Archie found the alimony that grandma secretly saved from her ex-husband's house, totaling 65,438+06 points, at a rate of 30,000 yen per minute-the alimony of her ex-husband's house was always left to Ji Ya, and she didn't spend a penny.

A few days later, Archie took Shota out to steal things parked in the car. This time, Shota hesitated. After Archie steals things alone, Shota asks Archie on the way to escape if he finds out that he stole money from the car, not to save himself. Archie immediately denied this statement.

A few days later, I took Ling to the convenience store again, only to find that the convenience store was closed this time. It turns out that the owner has passed away.

Shota has been hesitating since the death of the convenience store owner. This time, he came to the familiar supermarket in Ling He. Tell Ling to wait outside, and then go in to steal something, only to find Ling sneaking in and starting to steal things like usual. In order to cover Ling, he overthrew the goods to attract the attention of the clerk, and immediately picked up a bag of fruit and ran out. Two shop assistants split up, and Shota was trapped on the overpass. He was in a hurry and jumped over the fence of the overpass. As a result, he fell into a coma.

A Zhi and Xintai rushed to the hospital, and the doctor told them that Shota only hurt his leg, which was not serious. When the registration information was approved, they immediately fabricated an excuse to leave. After returning home, Archie intends to run away with everyone and tell everyone that there is no such thing as grandma. As a result, he was just about to go out when he was caught by the police who came to investigate.

The police questioned a family of five people and soon found out the truth. At first, Aji was Shindai's lover. When she learned that Shindai's husband (grandma's son) often abused her, they conspired to kill her husband and buried him in the yard. They have lived in Chai Tian's house ever since. Xintai couldn't have children, so they stole Shota from the car parked on the side of the road. Grandma adopted Ji Ya, who ran away from home. I just read that I have a criminal record in Aji. This time, Xintai assumed almost all the responsibilities. Abandoning the body is a felony, Shindai was sentenced to jail, and Aji only took the blame for stealing. The policeman asked Aji why he taught his children to steal. Aji said he had nothing to teach.

After his release, Shota was placed in a welfare home because he couldn't remember his life experience for a long time and began to go to school. Archie was placed in a single apartment. Soon after, Shota skipped class and visited Xintai with Archie. In prison, Shindai told Shota the location and model where he was found. Shota will stay in Archie's apartment for one night. Before going to bed, Shota asked Archie if he planned to abandon himself and escape, as the police said. Archie hesitated for a long time before admitting it. In fact, Archie was holding Shota's sneakers the night he escaped.

The next day, Archie gave Shota a lift back to school. Before getting on the bus, Shota lowered his head and told Archie that he was caught on purpose. George was silent after hearing this. By this time, the bus had already started. George chased the car and called Shota's name. Shota pretended not to hear. When the car left, Shota looked back behind him and said "Dad" silently.

Ling, who was sent home, used the name of this tree again. Once again, she was locked on the balcony, tidying up her toys and reading the children's songs given to her in the letter. After reading it, she silently looked at Chai Tian's direction and began to stop.

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Thieves' Family is another family film directed by Hirokazu Koreeda after Diary of the Sea Street. Just compared with the bright and transparent and low-contrast fresh picture of One Piece Diary, Thieves Family uses a large number of low-brightness and high-contrast color schemes, which gives people a depressed subjective feeling with a large number of indoor scenes. On the other hand, in composition, directors often make the picture compact by blocking objects, and at the same time use a large number of overlapping characters to form a small environment with multi-person effect, so that the distance between the protagonists is closer and people can easily feel the intimate relationship between the protagonists' families. The superposition of these two subjective feelings can quickly bring the audience into such a bitter but warm marginal family atmosphere.

There are few bright scenes in the whole movie, and the longest one should be the seaside scene, which should be a subtle arrangement made by the director to run out of light. I believe that the audience who saw that scene must be most impressed. This scene is also the most crucial link between the preceding and the following. The emotional tone reached the highest level here and then gradually weakened.

Speaking of the theme of the story, the theme of "family" should be the common core of many works of Hirokazu Koreeda in recent years (Nobody knows, Father and Son, Go on, Diary of Hai Jie). Even so, Hirokazu Koreeda can always dig out some seemingly simple problems through these short stories for in-depth discussion.

Director Hirokazu Koreeda once mentioned such a passage in his prose collection "The Speed Like Walking":

What are movies and TV for you?

Sometimes, I will encounter this kind of question that goes straight to the essence and is difficult to answer

"It's communication."

I have been answering this question recently.

"Not to express yourself?"

The other party continues to ask. I don't know about other directors, but since I entered this industry, the word "expressing myself" seems out of place.

Not that I'm pregnant with this job. Works and feelings have long been contained in the world. I just pick them up, collect them and show them to the audience in my hand. Works are dialogues (exchanges) with the world. Do you think this world view is modest and rich, or do you think it is the incompetence of the creator? This opposition has existed from the beginning.

(The above is taken from WeChat public account: Muyu Shui Xin)

If filmmakers must be divided into formalism and realism, Hirokazu Koreeda must belong to the latter. For the former, all the plots, characters, picture scheduling and even BGM of the film are to express a certain narrative or emotion of the director, such as another Japanese movie master Shunji Iwai; For the latter, movies present the whole picture of life or events to the audience. Although it may express its own views, it will certainly not bring excessive empathy to the audience, so it has the feeling of documentary, which not only has a strong sense of reality, but also brings people space to think and play. For example, this little "Family of Thieves", the story only comes from the news that a simple thief was arrested, but it gives people a strong sense of reality, as if it really happened.

Go back to the story itself-decide whether this unrelated family is bound by interests or feelings; What do we think of such a family that can only make a living by crime? Undoubtedly, what makes the family members of thieves so intimate and tacit is the strong emotional bond between them. However, it is undeniable that there are more or less interests, such as A Zhi and Xintai's idea of giving grandma a pension; When Suntech learned that Archie had work-related injury insurance, it intentionally or unintentionally said that it was more worthwhile to break his leg and so on. In the process of watching movies, it is not difficult to feel the director's high affirmation of the kinship beyond blood between thieves' families, whether through the director's careful arrangement of "No Water" or the long-shot dialogue between families. At the same time, the director did not simply blame the society or some initiators for this embarrassing situation of marginal families, but showed the problems of family members themselves from an almost cold perspective-Aji would not go to the construction site again because he would. Because I haven't read a book, all I can teach my children is stealing and telling them that the things on the bookshelf don't belong to anyone; Because there is no way to send children to school, I told Shota that only those children who can't study at home will go to school; Because A Zhi and Shindai can't have children, they will think of taking other people's children Shota as their own children; And as elders, Shindai and Grandma have some bad habits such as petty theft.

From this perspective, the fairy tale of "Little Black Fish" told by Xiang Tai and Archie actually constitutes an important metaphor. Although Archie, a "little black fish" with eyes, can unite the thief family, if the eyes are taken wrong, then in the end, these small fish can only wait for a tragic ending.

Back to life, most of us, like Shota, are chosen by our parents, and our first half of life or even our whole life may be influenced by our parents to some extent. However, whether it is good or bad, their selfless dedication to their families is worthy of recognition and cherish. The fetters of a family are not simply related by blood, but by the efforts and efforts of family members. This is the biggest feeling that I saw this film again recently.