Hirokazu Koreeda’s (是枝 裕和) “After the Storm,” the story of a divorced family having a reunion as a storm loomed large on the horizon, ran in competition at the Cannes Festival two years ago. “The Third Murder” was presented at the Berlinale last year, a rather twisted police procedural. And now, a “A family affair,” a film that’s centered on the intimate relations of the Shibatas, a small group of thieves in which women, men
The Shibata family is poor. Osamu, the man of the house, and his boy Shota, get by with petty thievery, one of the women of the household is a sex worker, the other works in an industrial laundry, they all sleep like sardines in a small apartment. Heading home after a shoplifting outing one day, Osamu his son Shota in tow finds Yuri, a little girl who is sitting by the curb. They bring her home. She’s reluctant to talk, keeps to herself.