Oshima double feature

Tonight's Silent Sunday Nights lineup is a pair of movies directed by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima. The first of them is Cruel Story of Youth at 2:00 AM. The second movie is Boy at 4:00 AM.

I only saw this one once almost four years ago when TCM ran it as part of the Story of Film series. It's based on a true story of a family in which the father ran a series of scams setting up hit-and-run "accidents" and scamming the innocent drivers into paying hush money to make things go away. The only thing is, the family uses their 10-year-old boy to fake the hit pedestrian.

The lifestyle means that the family has to move from one place to another, leaving the child rootless. Also, Dad treats Mom (actually a stepmother) badly, which further screws up the child. It's a disturbing but fascinating little movie. It also doesn't seem to be available on DVD, so you'll have to catch the TCM showing.