Boy is the story of a family of four surviving at the margins of society, unnoticed, almost forgotten. Travelling all across Japan and performing their con act, which consists in jumping in front of cars and frightening motorists into thinking they have hit and injured a member of the family (usually the eldest son or the mother) to extort money from them, parents and children manage to live an uncertain day-by-day existence, without any hope and responsibility concerning the future. The family carries on until authority eventually crushes down their precarious circumstances.
Based on events that shocked Japan in 1966, Boy was received with mixed criticism at the time of its release. The fact the film is inspired by a true story however takes nothing away from its highly suggestive nature. The "Father", the "Stepmother" and the "Boy" are archetypal figures in a timeless tragedy of human incomprehension and negation. At the same time, their down-to-earth essence is constantly reassessed by showing them as they carry out trivial activities, like satisfying their bodily needs and conversing about everyday matters. Just a few random facts are revealed to us now and then about the family members: the Father is diabetic and was injured during the war; the Boy has a grandmother in Kochi, where he also attended school for some time; the Stepmother is from Fukui. These and other sparse clues never come as a revelation, they do not make a real difference in our perception of the characters' motives and desires, and we listen to casual conversations as intruders, not as spectators in a privileged omniscient position. We hardly get to know what the adults feel and think, and even if we observe them directly, they remain impenetrable; the glimpses we have of their real selves are always filtered through layers of greed and frustration.
Boy is also a film of little details, where the mundane shapes a narrative of broken expectations and misplaced deeds. The Stepmother's eyeglasses flying on the floor; the red rubber boots of a certain girl, the various hats worn by the Boy: these are just a few examples of inanimate objects that become an extension to the characters' identity and symbols in their tragedy. It's not uncommon for the Japanese to create a parallel storyline through the minutest items and ordinary actions and Ôshima uses them thoroughly in his depiction of the humdrum albeit lawless existence of this group of outcasts in the Japan of the mid 60's. Objects define what words fail to convey. The names of the characters are not revealed until the end, when a neutral newscaster's voice acknowledges their identity as "Omura Takeo, born in 1922", "Taniguchi Takeko, born in 1939" and "Toshio, 10 years old", while summing up their lives and the scandal of the car accidents through a collection of stills revisiting some of the events of the story, effectively confining the family members to the anonymous carousel of faceless somebodies emerging and disappearing in the impersonal crowd of the news.
Interestingly enough, the only parenthesis of almost comforting normality in the story takes place off screen. We are not shown the time when the family goes into hiding for fear of being found out and settle in Osaka; we do not know how they deal with a regular lifestyle and what kind of dynamics this entails. As members of the public opinion, it is only through the characters' dysfunctional side that we are given to acknowledge their existence.
Besides its bleak humanistic outlook, the film offers an accurate sociological commentary on the Japanese society of the 60's. The family devising the car scam is emblem of a country that is struggling to be on par with the economic powers of the world. Cars are the tangible attribute for Japan's regained prosperity; at the same time they are more than a status symbol, they are vehicles for the popular classes to stay afloat, through licit and illicit means. Similar topics, often veined with social and political criticism, were not uncommon in the works of the new filmmakers of Japan. An example is Noriaki Tsuchimoto's documentary On the Road.
From a visual point of view, the cinematography of Boy is a stunning achievement in its own right. Color and tinted black and white are alternated throughout the film, creating a sub-textual score that is revealing of the Boy's subjective ambivalence. The way color is used is never a simple reinforcement to illustration of facts and feelings nor does it give away in obvious manner indications concerning how the viewer should react emotionally. Some scenes are revisited in different color registers, offering the spectator new material for thought.
Besides being the central character, the Boy is the only key we have to connect on an emotional level with the events shown. He leans towards his Stepmother's side. Even if she can be abusive and cruel, she has a certain degree of comradeship and understanding for the Boy. This is why she gives him money and buys trinkets for him. Boy and Stepmother plan to keep the business going on their own in order to save enough to lead a normal life afterwards. Even if for different reasons, their goals and ambitions overlap. As an adult however, the woman's natural sense of righteousness is lost. Ultimately, as a woman, the Stepmother is far from being in control and is rather a lesser victim in the mechanics of a male-centric world.
Adults and children are two poles at the ends of the human spectrum. While adults remain isolated and extraneous, occasionally getting together only on a superficial, businesslike level, children associate following their instincts. The Boy is protective of his little brother, whose innocence he tries to preserve together with his own through the tale of the Men of the Cosmos, a superior race from the galaxy of Andromeda, whose aim is fighting evil and caring for one another. He also establishes a deep bond with the girl with the red boots, without even exchanging a single word with her. The death of the girl is the Boy's final epiphany, the turning point that makes him grow out of his fantasies to realize he is just a helpless being with no hope left in humanity. Adults and children live in contingent and yet separate spheres, forced to share the same physical spaces and yet potentially tending towards opposites. Adults force children into the same roles they impose on themselves, and children are not given the right to pursue their natural inclinations. To overcome the dismay of constantly living a life of annihilation within the constraints of the adult world, children can only retreat into a universe of make-believe.
Directed by: Nagisa Ôshima
With: Fumio Watanabe, Akiko Koyama, Tetsuo Abe
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