Boy

damn 💔

Karsten

A fiercely humanist portrayal of moral decay in 1960s Japan seen through the guileless eyes of adolescence. Ōshima never shied away from tackling political subject matter in unique ways in his pictures, even when taking a more formal approach as he does here, though that…

Jerry

Based on the true story of Iwao Nakamoto and Hatsue Deguchi, Ôshima's most liked film is a heartbreaking account of a highly dysfunctional family that elaborated a plan consisting on faking car accidents with their 10-year-old son for then threatening the drivers with…

Edgar Cochran ✝️🍋

A vagabond family grift their way through Japan in this caustic, satirical scrutiny of eroding post-war values. Oshima's uncanny knack for unearthing subtle human dynamics within the urban margins hint at Ozu's observational whimsy: But no, in fact it barely conceals the…

cult_vegetables

No cinema, há dois tipos de cineastas: os que filmam o sujeito através de uma janela e os que filmam a janela. Os primeiros acabam fazendo um cinema comercial, “clássico”: o sujeito é filmado como um objeto. Estabelece-se uma distância em relação a esse objeto, para melhor…

Bruno Andrade

One of Nagisa Oshima’s more tragic societal critiques, BOY is a warning about the effect of post-war Japan’s economic scaffolding on even its smallest units. The film follows Toshio: a ten-year old whose parents use him as the centerpiece of an elaborate scheme that…

Janus Films

Another cruel story of youth. Here are some reasons Oshima is becoming one of my favorites: 1. He is as much a budget-oriented journeyman as an auteur. So far, every film has been conceptually, thematically and structurally different, but form a cohesive whole. I’d say he…

jeliben

Oshima at his most narratively accessible, but also at his most emotional and heartbreaking. One of the most effective portrayals of an abusive and exploitative family dynamic ever made, how poverty and/or low-income circumstances contribute to those former circumstances,…

Neil Bahadur

My first encounter with Nagisa Ôshima proves to be a mentally incapacitating experience. Boy left me withered and drained, one of the most devastating and painfully depressing films I have ever seen. Ôshima's film is based on a true story of a family of con artists who…

Robert Beksinski