NEW 35MM PRINT!

On no account to be missed: a stunning new Scope  print of “Oshima’s finest film” (Donald Richie). Boy recounts the true story, one that briefly shocked Japan in 1966, of a married couple who trained their ten-year-old child to fake being hit by autos so they could collect damages from the shaken drivers. Oshima brilliantly employs this simple tale in a complex double portrait – of the desperate family, driven to callous extortion and exploitation, and the grasping society in which they live, one the director holds accountable for their actions. (“The blood of this young boy dyes all of Japan red,” claimed the trailer for the film.) With rigorous empathy, Oshima portrays the father, who was a soldier in the war and whose wounds are both real and symbolic; the hard-nosed stepmother, “the worst outlaw of all” according to Oshima; and their two children, the unblinking boy who throws his small body against speeding metal to ensure the family’s survival, and his mercifully uncomprehending baby brother. Stunningly shot in Scope throughout Japan (including snowy Hokkaido), with charged use of colour, composition, and unnerving music, Boy was for Oshima both an objective view of a dire situation and what the director called “a prayer.” His tender, matter-of-fact treatment of the boy has rarely been equalled in cinema for its evocation of a child’s apprehension of the world. “Extraordinary: a mysteriously tranquil tale . . . cool and remote, shot in bright, jewel colours, the film builds steadily and sleekly to a haunting climax. . . . Weird, beautiful, and terrifying” (Tom Milne, The Observer).