Boy (1969) review

A family - Toshio (Tetsuo Abe), his father (Fumio Watanabe), step-mother (Akiko Koyama) and a small child - run a dangerous scam: they go from city to city stepping in front of moving automobiles and then shake down the drivers for money.  As a cultural critique it's somewhat vapid - Watanabe's character is a 'wounded' veteran and refuses to get 'real work,' exploiting his own family members (is this a shot at the military?), the cars could represent the West's cultural invasion - although it is based on a true story that Oshima read about in the newspaper.  The movie is basically filtered through the lens of the main character, although aside from his curious interest in aliens, he's not exactly 'expressive.'