Shoplifters
a film directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Last year’s Cannes Film Festival jury, chaired by Cate Blanchett, awarded its top prize, the Palme d’Or, to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters. It was an uncontroversial choice, since Kore-eda’s features have been appearing on the international festival circuit since the mid-1990s, and his latest film was applauded by critics as tightly controlled, beautifully acted, moving, and clearly one of his best. There was, however, a lingering resistance on the part of some high-art cinephiles to Koreeda’s coronation, perhaps because in the past he has shown crowd-pleasing tendencies, and because he lacks a signature art-house visual style, along the lines of recent global masters like Abbas Kiarostami, Hou Hsiaohsien, the Dardenne brothers, Wong Kar-wai, or Hong Sangsoo. That he is considered by many the leading…