The fate of a boy from a family of scammers in a modernist masterpiece by a classic of 20th century Japanese cinema. Screening as part of the film programme Tashkent-1970. The Festival That Never Was.
Boy
- Date:
- 11 Jul 2025,
19:30–21:20
- Age restrictions
- 18+
Shōnen
1969, Nagisa Ōshima
Japan
97 minutes, Japanese with Russian subtitles
Starring: Tetsuo Abe, Akiko Koyama, Fumio Watanabe
T
Ten-year-old Toshio’s father and stepmother force him to participate in their scams. The main one is simple but effective: the child throws himself on the bonnet of passing cars so that his parents can then extort money from the drivers. The accidents are faked, but the trauma the boy suffers is very real, and he becomes increasingly seething with rage and powerlessness.
Shot from Boy, 1969
Nagisa Oshima, in this 1969 drama, offers a quietly bilious vision of mercenary corruption and postwar trauma.
— Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Nagisa Ōshima’s film is distinguished by the highest degree of humanism without a drop of sentimentality. The more detached it is from its characters, the more shattering the effect it produces.
