The Ballad of Narayama (1958) User Reviews

Succeeds in some ways that a more realistic telling can miss

[Chris_Docker · 9/10 · 9 October 2007]

One of the most fascinating books I've read in recent years is Sherwin Nuland's How We Die. In it he relates the exact physical progression of major diseases. But something that fascinates me even more is how our frame of mind changes our perception. I can think of no better example in the realm of death and dying than this ancient tale of 'going up the mountain to die.' Set in an indeterminate time in old Japan, Ballad of Narayama chronicles two elderly people's preparations for death. One of them is Orin. She is a grandmother calmly facing what lies ahead, and putting her affairs (especially those of her family and how they will cope with her dying) into some sort of harmonious picture, so she doesn't have to worry about them. Her neighbour, a man of similar age, is dreading it.

We should maybe bear in mind that a strong spirit of empathy pervades Japanese society, more so than in the West. Human relations are very closely knit and there is much less drive for individualism and autonomy than in the West. Community traditions can play a very big part. And the tradition in the village where these people live is that when people reach a certain age they go up the mountain and die.

Orin takes delight in the 'glowing crimson of the autumn maple.' She has an almost non-theistic spirituality, an idealism and altruism towards others, as well as a humility about her own readiness for death. On the one hand, she says, "The sooner I go, the more the gods will favour me." But she is strangely ashamed of having a full set of teeth. She feels it would be more proper to go to her death as a toothless hag.

If you are spiritually minded, it is quite easy to say that she is in tune with her Shinto or Buddhist beliefs. But if we look at her psychology she has created a world for herself that is filled with attitudes that make her feel good about herself. The thought of her 'pilgrimage' to Narayama fills her with poetic ideas, even if she has no illusions about suffering.

The elderly man on the other hand, clings to his life. He is so obnoxious that his family react badly. They eventually refuse to feed him. "Instead of suffering so, go to Narayama," Orin bids him. "Narayama is the abode of the gods, a place of bliss and blessings." Although it is physically the same place for both of them, it is in effect a very different place for Orin because of her frame of mind. I think the lack of overt religiosity in the film emphasises this. Religion, for those that like it, simply makes, we could say, a ready made poem for us to fit into. Of course, forcing the old man up the hill is a pretty heinous act - and one that the film does not shirk from dealing with.

Often when we watch a film, we want to get submerged in the 'story.' But this can deflect from considering the point that the artist wants to make. The playwright Bertolt Brecht understood this and developed many of his influential theories after watching Japanese theatre. Borrowing from the Kabuki tradition, Ballad of Narayama distances the viewer from the story by creating a very theatrical effect. At the same time, various devices are used to make sure we remain gripped and pay attention.

The film is accompanied by expository chants of a 'jyuri' narrator. There is frequently an unashamed and flamboyant staginess. For instance, a silk backdrop is loosed to reveal a forest at night. What might be considered silly in western cinema works with a Shakespearean majesty here. The film is visually and musically arresting. It doesn't rely on 'realism' to create an effect. We start thinking about the mental states and moral dilemmas of what is patently a modern fairy tale rather than just entertainment.

At the end of the film, a sudden switch to non-theatrical black and white has a disappearing train and a station called 'The Abandoning Place.'

Excellent Japanese classic

[FilmFlaneur · 8/10 · 6 November 2007]

The Ballad Of Narayama (aka: Narayam bushiko) is a film by Keisuke Kinoshita, whose directing career stretched over 40 years. In notable fashion it mixes kabuki style balladeer narration and musical accompaniment with a tragic story set around responsibilities of old age, rural hardship, family cruelty and the painful obligations brought by restrictive and conservative social convention. It's a consideration of that which is a characteristic of many films made before, and during, the golden age of Japanese cinema. In the hands of masters like Mizoguchi, for instance, such depictions frequently evolved into profound considerations of the female condition. (In fact star Kinuyo Tanaka, was a favourite of that master, having previously appeared in films like Sansho Dayu and Ugetsu Monogatari.) Narayama is of that old school: an often painful - this viewer for one will long remember the moment when the old woman knocks out her own teeth on the edge of a stone grinder - and frequently moving account of a society which denies dignity to the old but which, at least in one instance, is granted them anyway. Such a traditional style of storytelling all but vanished when a new wave of Japanese directors come to prominence in the following decade. As others have observed the biggest irony of the film is that grandmother Orin is probably the single most productive member of her immediate circle. Of her nearest relatives, as she herself says: "Tatsuhei and Kesakichi are useless" - seen thus, her looming absence is very much a tragedy on both a social, as well as a personal, level.

Much of Narayama's power is drawn from its exquisite staging, an entirely successful recreation of a village environment and surrounding countryside done entirely in the studio. Except for the striking final shots, every part of the film is artificial, including the passing of time, even if emotions evoked thereby are not. Intense character interactions are sometimes emphasised in pools of light, while at another moment the set is lit in an ominous red; painted backcloths occasionally drop to provide transition between one scene and another, while actors end their parts in silhouette as the next action starts up behind them. Close ups are used sparingly, characters typically seen at a distance in their environment, again as on a stage. It is a process unique to this version of the tale, based on the folk story Dumping Grannies. It was one that, incidentally, was not copied over by Imamura in his, also critically successful, 1983 remake of Narayama with the result that that film arguably had a wider international appeal (it won top prize at Cannes).

In a different tradition entirely, the artificiality and expressionism on display in the present version recall that of Kwaidan (1964) a colour horror film where even the sun and sky are painted in dramatic fashion - even though not with quite the intensity. The result of Narayama's very deliberate technique is to emphasise the narrative texture of events as well at the same time to place them firmly within a particularly nationalistic tradition of story telling. It's also a cumulative effect given abrupt contrast by the last scene of the film, which places events back in a modern context.

In the film, moments of pathos and tragedy frequently counterbalance those of formality and ritual, and it's the tension between these two that gives the results power, and their Japanese flavour. This is most notable during the final trip to the mountain, one made by the despairing son carrying his grandmother upwards on his back. It's a long journey both for the principals as well as in actual screen time, as the passage occupies long and frequently silent minutes as they pass deliberately through the artificially crafted landscape. It's one that has been previously described, and its responsibilities circumscribed, by the precise instructions of village elders. But it speaks volumes too as far as the central relationship is concerned; heartbreaking as the mother refuses to communicate during her final hours, and as we see Tatsuhei torn between duty and natural familial feeling.

As one might expect the performances in Narayama are uniformly excellent, although that of Tanaka ought to be singled out for especial praise. Her portrayal of Orin conveys sadness, warmth and self-sacrifice in equal, convincing measure. With her entirely honourable acceptance of her destiny, and blind faith in the reasoning behind it, she is as much a reflection of her society as she is criticism of it. Termed by her contemporaries the "33 devil teeth woman" for her unhelpfully intact dental work (a sign of her continuing, unwelcome food consumption), Orin never the less retains a defining put-upon dignity which remains intact for the duration of the film, even when she says nothing but droops sadly, carried to her fate on her son's back.

A world away from the MTV editing techniques and CGI laden work of contemporary Hollywood product, some will find the essentially static nature of this film a challenge, and indeed for a introduction to classic Japanese cinema viewers would be better directed to the contemporary work of Kurosawa. Others will be pleased that such a relatively hard to see classic is at last available after some time out of circulation. The Ballad Of Narayama is a film whose formal beauty and human qualities impress even today.

Deliciously Stunning Exploration of the Possibilities of Colour

[kurosawakira · 8/10 · 23 February 2013]

Made available on Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection, Kinoshita's highly stylized exploration of the Narayama story is a deliciously stunning exploration of the possibilities of colour, and has some of the most inventive use of transition in film.

You might be familiar with the far more explicit and naturalistic film version of the same story from 1983, made by Shôhei Imamura, and knowledge of that film greatly enhanced my viewing of this. These two films are worlds apart, in fact so much that it feels that Imamura's film openly converses with this, since its theatricality seems to almost provoke the kind of hyper-naturalism inherent in the Imamura. Another film that enriches this is Kinugasa's "Jigokumon" ("Gates of Hell", 1953), available on Region B Blu-ray courtesy of the Masters of Cinema, and soon to be released by Criterion, as well.

I didn't know much of Kinoshita before this, only the biographical information concerning his relationship with Masaki Kobayashi, who served as his apprentice and whose film "Harakiri" (1962) Kinoshita openly disliked (he reversed his opinion later). I think it's somewhat ironic since Kobayashi's use of lighting certainly finds a compeer here, and I think this definitely encouraged "Kwaidan" (1964) to go to the lengths it did.

thought provoking

[harry_tk_yung · 3 April 2005]

In terms of movie making, Ballad of Narayama is not unlike shooting of a live play, with sets of distant mountains, stage lightning, and actors at a distance. There are however also close ups, where required, so that we know that we are watching a film rather than a live shooting of a play.

Most effective is the narration of the story through a ballad, in the kabuki style. Very loosely, I suppose one can compare it with Cat Ballou, in the sense that at intervals, the ballad takes over in moving the story forward. But the music is obviously entirely different. In Narayama the desolate style of the kabuki singing and haunting mood of the Japanese lute add so much power to some of the heart wrenching scenes.

The story is an allegory on the most fundamental of human tragedies, the insufficiency of resources. By tradition and custom, old people of the poor village are taken to the distant mountains of Narayama and left to die when they reach seventy. In this story which brings us right into close-up contact with a family, the old woman Orin's son had just lost a wife through accident and about to take a new one, a recently widowed woman from the next village. Meanwhile, his young son wants to marry. Both involve adding another mouth to be fed, in a year when harvest is particularly poor. But while the son and new daughter-in-law, in their love for Orin, want to delay taking her to Narayama, the callous grandson wants to get rid of the old grandmother as soon as possible.

The old woman, in hope of easing her son's agony, always talks about going to Narayama cheerfully as if it's like the Elves going "into the west". Her enthusiasm may even spread to the audience, although her son knows exactly what it means and tries to hold back his anguished tears every time the subject is mentioned. When this finally comes, we see the son carrying Orin on his back, struggling up rugged mountain paths and begging his mother to speak to him one last time. Orin steadfastly refuses to say anything, knowing that any exchange would just make the parting that much more painful. At the ghostly desolate mountain top, he leaves her, among scattered skeletons of those who went before and preying carrion crows, and dashes sway in tears, running madly downhill, when snow starts to come down. And that's a good sign, because the soil will be better next year for a better crop. A most heart-wrenching scene.

When we read about famines that kill millions, it's something that is in such a macro scale that it is beyond a personal experience. Watching Narayama, the audience sees how the village can only afford to eat pure white rice just once a year, during the Narayama Festival. We see how the next village is anxious to send over the widow to Orin's family as early as possible because she can start eating there. We see how the heartless grandson can only think of getting rid of the grandmother to make room for his own wife. We see how eating is the biggest ritual, the single most important thing is life, and a bowl of white rice is consumed with almost religious zeal. We see all these, as well as the resulting Narayama ritual.

The ultimate irony is that Orin, approaching 70, is as productive a member of the family and any other, because she possesses skills of catching fish nobody else does. She also has a full set of perfect teeth. In order to prove that she qualifies to go to Narayama, she deliberately crashes some of her front teeth on a stone mill. Is this the noblest of human sacrificing spirit or simply the love any mother would have for her children? You can decide.

Dumping Grannies

[GyatsoLa · 8/10 · 5 January 2008]

Kinoshita is a director who seems to have two distinct reputations - his Japanese reputation as a beloved and critically acclaimed filmmaker of long standing - and his western reputation as a technically adept but conservative and overly sentimental director, not someone in the same class as Kurosawa, Ozu, etc. This movie seems to sum up why this could be.

Its based on a classic old story, about a son who's duty is to bring his elderly mother to a mountain to die, in line with local tradition. This tradition is a rational response to extreme poverty, where infanticide is the normal form of birth control and the old are seen as too much of a burden for poor families. The mother is determined to go with dignity, to meet the gods on Mount Narayama - the loving widowed son is desperate to dissuade her. His older son and daughter in law are hateful, immature and greedy, more than willing to see the grandmother go if it means more food for them.

The story is told in a highly theatrical, staged style, and narrated and acted as if it were a kabuki play. It even starts with a curtain parting. This would have been familiar to early Japanese film goers as the roots of Japanese cinema was in filmed theater, rather than in representational forms (i.e. 'moving pictures') as in most other countries. So, while this seems a somewhat contrived and arty approach to a modern western viewer, to the contemporary Japanese audience it would have been familiar and natural.

The staging is beautiful and it is a very moving story, with some gorgeous sets and lighting. Kinuyo Tanaka is particularly moving as the old lady (she was also a director in her own right). One source book (by David Thompson) claims she actually had her teeth removed to make the movie, although I'd be a bit skeptical about that (this sounds to me like the sort of thing a publicist would invent). Like similar movies such as the Kon Ichikawas superior 'An Actors Revenge', this movie is a very accessible introduction to viewers to traditional Japanese forms.

A solemn and formal film like this could be boring, but its a tribute to Kinoshita and the actors that it is always gripping and powerful. However, it also exposes his weaknesses as a director, as the story is used purely for aesthetic purposes, and with the sorrow of the son being used to grab our sympathies, but there is no element whatever of a condemnation of a society that allowed this to happen, or for that matter an exploration of the psychological implications of this on the individuals in a society. I would have expected any of the more astute and radical directors of the time (such as Masumura or Ichikawa) to have used this basic story as a way of critiquing Japanese society or exploring what this sort of situation tells us about ourselves. In this way, the movie is essentially quite shallow and conservative.

One of the most under seen films of all-time

[willwoodmill · 9/10 · 1 March 2016]

Classic Japanese cinema is something that isn't very popular here in the west. However several classic Japanese films still have large followings, the films of people like Akira Kurosawa, and Masaki Kobayashi have found relatively large audiences. Nevertheless there are still countless hidden gems that remain nearly completely unknown, even among the fans of Kurosawa and Kobayashi. These hidden gems rank among some of the most underrated films of all time. These films can come from the silent era, to postwar Americanized Japan. One such film that comes from the latter is Ballad of Narayama.

Ballad of Narayama is a film that is designed to protest euthanasia, through the film's central topic of Ubasute, Ubastute is the feudal Japanese practice, where the elderly and crippled are carried up mountains and left to die of exposure. The film is about a small isolated Japanese town in the mountains during feudal times. In this small town their is an old women by the name of Orin, (played by Kinuyo Tanaka, who starred in several of Kenji Mizoguchi's films.) who is approaching her 71st birthday. This may not seem like a big deal to us, but in the small-town this is shameful. In their eyes she should have been taken to Narayama, which is the mountain that villagers use to dispose of their elderly, years ago. The villagers see her as selfish for sticking around for so long, and to make things worse she still has a full set of teeth! (Again that doesn't seem important to us, but it is to them.) The film tells the story of how Orin's son Tatushei (played by Teiji Takahashi, who collaborated with Yasujiro Ozu several times.) must face the fact that he will eventually have to take Orin up to the top of the mountain.

Ballad of Narayama was directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, who while extremely skilled, is almost completely unknown. And he does wonders in Ballad of Narayama. Ballad of Narayama is one of the most unconventional films I have ever scene. Whether it's the singing narration, or the strangest transitions ever. Ballad of Narayama is always doing something to keep you invested and interested. I've gone over two paragraphs without mentioning Ballad of Narayama's (arguably) strongest aspect, it's lighting, set design, and cinematography. All of these combine to make Ballad of Narayama one of they most beautiful films ever made. The beauty really is impossible to describe, but Ballad of Narayama is one of a few films were just the visuals are able to evoke an emotional response. Another thing you'll notice about the film's visuals is that the film resembles a play. The film opens with a strange man standing in front of a curtain and he introduces the film to us and then the opening credits happen, and then the curtain opens and the film begins. The sets also seem very stage-like, and I mean that in the best way possible. There's something about the sets and lighting that just makes the films so alive and vivid. Every shot in the film pays such close attention to detail, it just feels like you're watching a feudal Japanese village.

Ballad of Narayama comments on much more than euthanasia, though that is the central focus. Like most postwar Japanese films Ballad of Narayama criticizes the traditional Japanese view of marriage. The idea that you always have to be married to be happy, and there is no such thing as a single life. The film also discusses the concept of justice and punishment, in one scene a character is caught stealing from one of the villagers, and all the villagers, then round up all of the thief's family and all of there possessions, and distribute it amongst themselves. Orin tries to protest this, saying it isn't right for the villagers to punish the thief's family for what he did. But even with all of its other social commentary, it's undeniable central focus is euthanasia. Rarely do films comment on topics that are this serious or controversial. It's not like Orin doesn't want to die, but she needs her son to carry her up to the top of Narayama, and her son doesn't want to be the one who kills her. Which makes it much more complex and controversial. I don't think I've ever even seen another film that dared touch on this topic. Ballad of Narayama takes its subject matter very seriously, yes their are happy and slightly comic moments in the film, the same way you would find them in a Kurosawa film. But when it needs to, Ballad of Narayama can bring its audience to tears.

Ballad of Narayama was remade by famed Japanese new wave director Shohei Imamura in 1983, Imamura's version won the Palme d'Or that year. And that is probably the most recognition the original 1958 film has received since its release. Well that or when in 2013 it became the last film to be added to Roger Ebert's great movies list before he died, but unfortunately even with the acclaim its received, Ballad of Narayama still remains one of the most criminally unknown films of all time.

9.4

Almost a Japanese Kabuki drama

[frankde-jong · 9/10 · 4 December 2021]

This movie is less well known as the movie of the same name by Shohei Imamura from 1983. It differs in two respects. In the first place there is a material difference. In this movie the center of gravity is on the different ways that people can handle and accept their own mortality. In the Imamura movie the accent is on the battle between the generations for the scarce food supplies.

In the second place there is a stylistic difference. This movie is much more artificial, reminding of the traditional Japanese Kabuki drama. In its artificiality of the use of colors it also reminds of "Kwaidan" (1964, Masaki Kobayashi).

I like the version of Keisuke Kinoshita better then the later one of Shohei Imamura. The reason being, I think, that the stylistic artificiality is better suited for the mythical character of the story.

Poignant

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 13 July 2020]

It gets a little tedious to relate current events to old movies so apologies dear reader, but while watching this film I couldn't help but think of the heartless voices in American politics that suggested old people sacrifice themselves for the good of the economy during the pandemic this year. It also made me think of Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) and Midsommar (2019), and maybe that's all you need to know (and then some).

Bless the little old lady at its center (Kinuyo Tanaka) - she's so sweet, and certainly contributes to the family by catching fish, hauling the harvest, and cooking, which makes her treatment even more heartbreaking. Whether the practice of obasute is legendary or not, it's easy to see a real-world parallel to how older people are too often forgotten, shoved aside, or abused, which may touch some painful chords in the viewer.

Here we see cruelty that is at times blunt (her annoying-as-hell grandson), ritualized (perhaps to help rationalize it), and in some sense born out of brutal economic need (food is a luxury, and making white rice once a year is a special treat). It all reflects losing our humanity with how we treat the elderly. The film lags a little bit in its last half hour, but it absolutely brims with emotion. The kabuki styling of the storytelling from director Keisuke Kinoshita is delightful, and made me think of our painful little lives as on the stage, each in one role today, and another tomorrow.

Excellent Presentation

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 29 March 2016]

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film a maximum 4 stars, and added it to his Great Movies list in 2013, making it the final film he added to the list before his death. In a June 1961 review in The New York Times, A.H. Weiler called the film "an odd and colorful evocation of Japan's past that is only occasionally striking"; "It is stylized and occasionally graphic fare in the manner of the Kabuki Theatre, which is realistically staged, but decidedly strange to Western tastes." I have to respectfully disagree with Weiler. Perhaps at the time the film was strange to Western taste. I couldn't speak to that. But I find it quite refreshing, and really enjoy how they made it obvious that the story was told on a stage. Rather than hide the stag as American films do, this one embraces it, so you know you are really watching a story and it need not be any more than that. And yet, it is not just theater but a bigger experience.

a sad yet beautiful ballad

[bartolomeudebensafrim · 10/10 · 27 May 2018]

The movie is like a sequence of floating woodblock prints. almost every single shot is of astonishing beauty. the music is equally remarkable and when the narrative, the visual beauty and the music combine, it is too much to handle (i cried as if my own mother was going to Narayama).

i was a bit upset by the immorality of it, by the absurdity of it all. i am familiar with japanese culture and understand their unique relationship with death and honor - but this movie pushes everything to a strange painful limit.

the tremendous performance by Kinuyo Tanaka (Orin) makes the climb a very moving experience. the detail of the new wife's affinity towards the kind woman that is about to leave is just brilliant (the novel must be quite good aswell). Orin shows her the secret trout fishing spot and there is this immense pain that strikes us, this notion of the absurd amount of knowledge that lives inside elders, and of all the time that could still be used to learn and bond if it wasn't for the Narayama tradition.

the photography is just magical. the final scenes, after the warm coloured intimacy of the village, seem like the most desolate scenario conceivable - it makes something like Peter Jackson's Mordor, in LOTR, look like a kindergarden. just beautiful from start to finish. this is a the kind of movie that reminds me of what cinema was all about.

Tragic tradition

[valadas · 7/10 · 12 February 2009]

This is the story of an old woman who according to customary tradition of the remote Japanese village where she lives, must be carried by his son to the top of the neighbouring Narayama mountain to meet the gods and die since she has reached 70 years of age. Behind this tradition who seems awful to our western minds, lies the fact that the community is too poor to be able to support its old people. But tradition doesn't always subjugate human feelings and if the old woman shows herself as resigned to her fate and even displays some joy in fulfilling the tradition rules, his son feels a deep sorrow in accomplishing that terrible duty and while doing it he must fight in his heart and mind to subdue those loving and compassionate feelings. The scene at the top of the mountain when he is carrying his mother and ends up by laying her on the ground where soon snow begins to fall is intensely tragic in its silence interrupted now and then by the outbursts of the powerless and extremely emotional son's revolt. All along the film we hear to the voice off of a commentator who narrates the story accompanied by a beautiful traditional Japanese music. This commentator's performance reminds us of the role of the chorus present in ancient Greek tragedies. The images make us think of the traditional Japanese paintings with their patches of neat colours making a somewhat theatrical scenery. This movie gives way to deep emotions although not exposed with our kind of western reactions but with Japanese type ones which doesn't make them appear less human.

Imamura's version is a bit better, but this one's great, too

[zetes · 10/10 · 24 February 2013]

I had seen Shohei Imamura's version of this novel a few years ago, and it ranks as one of my favorite films. This earlier version, presented as a sort of kabuki-like play, loses a bit of its power because it streamlines the narrative a bit (not that I've read it; I suppose Imamura could have added details), but it's quite a wonder itself. The focus is more on the grandmother, the old woman who is to be taken and then abandoned on Narayama, here played by Kinuyo Tanaka. Teiji Takahashi (who acted in several Ozu films) plays her son, the man who is reluctant to follow the tradition. The acting is very good, though obviously stylized. What one will probably most remember about this version of the story is the gorgeous, painterly cinematography. It's all deliberately artificial, with a lot of painted backdrops and seamless scene transitions (Joe Wright's recent Anna Karenina adaptation may have been directly influenced by it). One moment that I found unintentionally funny: a bunch of crows are startled at one point and start to fly around, and a couple of them run into the matte painting in the background and have to turn around. The film is quite a wonder to behold, and the emotional heft of the story still works. It's certainly a nice companion piece to Imamura's masterpiece.

Strange

[billcr12 · 6/10 · 26 April 2022]

Roger Ebert has this listed has one of his best films. I tried to get into it but just couldn't. The style is unusual and the visuals stunning. The problem is a soundtrack which is grating, with out of tune strings and a man bellowing throughout with a strain indicating constipation. The tradition of sending people up a mountain to die gracefully at seventy is a depressing concept. Yikes.

Better than the Palme d'Or version

[ASuiGeneris · 5/10 · 7 December 2017]

The Ballad of Narayama (Japanese: Narayama bushikô) (1958) (Not to be confused with the even more difficult to watch Palme d'Or winning 1983 version.)

A stage play on film, Sung Kabuki narration Beautiful backdrops, Old woman piggybacks son Slow, strange, can be hard to watch.

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/ubasute/2

(Tanka (短歌 tan-kah) poems are unrhymed short poems that are five lines long, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format.

#Tanka #PoemReview

A Riveting Play, An Unforgettable movie.

[Pedro Pinto · 13 September 2001]

Truly the work of a master filmmaker. Although I learn Mr. Kinoshita died about two years ago, he left this lesson of how to film, photograph AND musically score movies. I know this is a hard-to-get movie, and it's a hard-to-"get" movie, but once the story drifts into your brain, you will forget it not. The synopsis (and this is not a SPOILER) is simple. Old Village has tradition to send the old (70 years old) up a mountain to die. Mother of widowed son wants to do this. She is 73 and still waiting for her son to get married. Son loves mom and doesn't want her to die alone on mountain.

Enter spouse-to-be. Enter the pain of the son versus the power of tradition. All of this Beautifully shot. AND it has a remake, by Shoei Imamura, inferior in storytelling and art yet superior in fame.

really better than Imamura's version

[the_frenchie · 10/10 · 4 March 2000]

The same story: a village, a young man with his old mother. He will bring her to die to Narayama. the interest of this movie is the mix of tabuchi theatre and cinema. Each scene began at the same time the previous one is finishing. And really poetical story, and movie

a look at the past in a changing Japan

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 5 April 2019]

With Japan modernizing and becoming an economic juggernaut in the wake of its WWII defeat, Keisuke Kinoshita's "Narayama bushikô" ("The Ballad of Narayama" in English) offers a perceptive look at the country's past. Based on a book by Shichiro Fukuzawa and told in kabuki style, it addresses the tradition of taking elderly people to a mountain to let them die (known as obasute).

This is the first of Kinoshita's movies that I've seen. Commenting on the inspiration for his work, Kinoshita said "I can't help it. Ideas for films have always just popped into my head like scraps of paper into a wastebasket." If this is any indication, he turned out some good work. Stark cinematography, unusual transitions between scenes, and perfect acting make this movie one of the best. I understand that there was a later version of this movie, but this is the only one that I'll see for now. Since we think of Japan as the world's most modernized place, it might surprise some people to learn that the Land of the Rising Sun had these traditions. Whatever the case, Kinoshita turned out one fine film, and I hope to see the rest of his movies. Definitely see it.

Analyzing Great Art Is Impossible. All You Can Do Is Admit It And Wonder

[boblipton · 10/10 · 22 September 2018]

In a small mountain village, Kinuyo Tanaka is doing her duty. She has gotten a new bride for her widowed son, Teiji Takahashi and made her new daughter welcome, showing her the secret spot where she fishes for trout. She has broken her teeth. When she turns 70 and the New Year comes, she will have her son carry her to the mountain Narayama and leave her there. Everyone is happy about this, except her son and her daughter-in-law whom she has treated so kindly, but that's the way of this poor, hungry, ritual-bound place.

A great movie shows you something new, and Keisuke Kinoshita showed me many things I had never seen before, and showed me many images from other Japanese movies in a new light. All the writing on this movie refers to it as "kabuki influenced", and I know almost nothing of that save a few scenes and glimpses in other movies. I am uncertain of what it means, but it affected me greatly. What more can one ask of any work of art?

One .... well, let's call it technique that Kinoshita uses was to shoot everything on sets, clearly marked as sets, with beautifully painted backdrops. It placed me in an artificial world, one of symbolic fiction, where the artist can examine those things which are too distressful to look at directly: thus the sexuality in DRACULA, in an era when sex could not be discussed, or the question of what makes a human in FRANKENSTEIN, or how to restore order in the universe in a well-made murder mystery, or the dangers of the world in a fairy tale.

Perhaps this limited, stage-like setting is essential to kabuki. If so, it might explain something in a few Japanese movies I have seen, most notably in Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW. In that movie, all the action in the first half takes place on a single set, bound almost like a proscenium arch, while the second half takes place all around Tokyo. Is the first act all a matter of story and the second, out in the real world? Can art and fantasy affect reality?

I don't know. This movie is too raw in mind and heart to sit here, plucking out bits and pieces of technique like the academic analyst I have been all my adult life. Sometimes when a movie show you something new, it's meaningless nonsense. That's when I can analyze it. Sometimes, it overwhelms you and leaves you wondering, and that's when it's great.

Caught Between a Film and a Staged Play

[brianberta · 8/10 · 23 January 2024]

This is the second film I can recall seeing which feels caught between a film and a staged play (the first one is Olivier's "Henry V"). Given the reactions I've seen from some of my Letterboxd followers, not everyone will click with its incorporation of Kubuki theater, but I was very much on board with it. Given the narrative and the kinds of themes it covers (mortality and the questionable treatment of the elderly villagers), this could've easily fallen into schmaltziness or misery, but the visual abstraction of its style prevents it from dipping into those territories. Putting aside the artificial sets and the obvious handmade backdrops, probably the most divisive element of it is the voice over singing as I've seen plenty argue it grew tiring fairly quickly. That said, I found it to be the most unique element of the film. In spite of the dialogue describing what normally would've been emotionally blunt minutiae and character asides, I rarely got the sense it was trying to manipulate my emotions. In the context of the visual style, it fit very well in the film and helped the story find the right balance between alienating you from the proceedings and properly conveying the inner thoughts of the characters and the customs of the village really well. In spite of what I said though, the final act still managed to devastate me. It's hard to watch it without being moved in some way. The remake is pretty good and might click with people who couldn't get into the style of this film, but I prefer this one by a decent margin.

"Never abuse my mama."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 28 May 2019]

High praise from virtually all the other reviewers on this board, and they make their points exceedingly well, but for me, this was a slow and mournful film telling a bleak story of senior citizens approaching the age of seventy and expected to end their lives on a mountain top. The grim aspects of the movie are given further resonance with doleful strumming and insistent drumming as part of the soundtrack. The circumstances of two elderly villagers are highlighted, one the old granny Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka) who has a conflicted relationship with members of her family, and the old man Mata (Seiji Miyaguchi), who resists all attempts at honoring the tradition of his fellow villagers to willingly submit to ostracism and death. So belligerent is Mata's son (Yûnosuke Itô), that his journey to Narayama and ultimate fate is personally delivered with a death dealing blow that sends Mata over a cliff. The story's theme is a sad tradition of 'obasute', or the abandonment of old people, which in fact finds it's sad way across all nationalities to some degree or another. A degree of patience is required to sit through the film, as many of the characters are unlikable, and it's resolution leaves little hope of satisfaction or fulfillment.