Cruel Story Of Youth Film Analysis

In the overall context of the film, what do you make of the end scene--Kiyoshi getting killed, instead of selling Makoto (at the end of the film?), and Makoto 's jump from the moving car?

Cruel Story of Youth is a very dark film, unlike as in earlier movies such as Giants and toys, where the movie is about the higher echelons of Postwar Japan: such as the corporate world and the lives of the newly well to do. Cruel Story of Youth explores the life of Japan’s impoverished urban youth. The life of Kiyoshi represents a continuous cycle of abuse needed to support a meek existence. The only important currency in his world is money, the only way to get; is by exploiting other people. Be it through theft, sexual enslavement of women, or intimidation, there seems to be no legitimate way to ‘earn’ money. The only other way to movie shows Kiyoshi and his friends getting money, is if they serve as ‘gigolos’ to older middle-aged women. These women support them financially in return. Makoto enters this life by accident, after she is saved by Kiyoshi, he proceeds to essentially rape her. After this scene she is drawn to him and gradually severs ties with her older middle class life. As the movie wears on, the two protagonists experience a gradual feeling of disillusionment. Their passive …show more content…
Money is the currency that is engaged in these transactions. The result of refusing to take part in this constant cycle is death. The moment both characters refuse to keep hurting others and one other is the moment when they both die. Cruel Story of Youth is a deeply pessimistic movie about a complex period of transition in the history of Japan. In this environment, everyone is trapped in a abusive and perverse society, but as with the old samurai and the code of Bushido, Oshima seems to conclude that the only escape is