Kinoshita's response to the mid-fifties taiyozoku ("sun-tribe")films about nihilistic youth was a cut apart and above, stylish and literary, andshowing a problem whose roots are deep in the postwar moment. Kiyoshi, the son ofa widowed servant who makes paper flowers to make ends meet, loses himself in afast crowd of would-be gangsters. But he is continually drawn by the pull of hismother's sorrow, his late sainted father (who actually was a black-marketeer),and the family's poverty. Mother and her memories are an anchor for hisself-hatred and a springboard for his violence. The son of her wealthy employerstakes an interest in him, like a spider toward a fly, and he becomes entwined inthe machinations of a Sirkian western-style household run on secrets and sexualinnuendo. As in its Hollywood counterpart Rebel Without a Cause, it's the parents-whether poor and long-suffering or rich and oblivious. Postwar youth wear theirelders' experience, which they will never understand, like a rosetattoo.