Circus Boys

The Japanese title translates as 'The Boy's Own Book of the 20th Century', which gives a good idea of the way it hovers on the brink of allegory without ever quite freezing into pretentiousness. Shot in glittering monochrome, it contrasts the path of two brothers from a circus family: one stays with the circus and tries to renew it, while the other leaves to become a roaming con-man and quack doctor. Between one man's idealism and the other's cynicism, Hayashi traverses a magical terrain of the mind and reaches a conclusion not far off the sublime.