Narayama bushikô (1983) Reviews

• A Truly Unforgettable Film

  howard.schumann2002-08-12

  Death and what it means is the theme of the haunting and sensuous Ballad of Narayama, a Cannes Film Festival Grand prize winner from 1982 by Shohei Imamaura (Black Rain, The Eel, Dr. Akagi). Based on a novel by Shichiro Fukazawa, this spellbinding film takes place in a rural mountainous area in northern Japan about one hundred years ago. Because the villager's rice crop is meager and starvation is a chronic threat, according to village custom, the elderly must go to die on the summit of Mount Narayama when they reach the age of 70. Group survival depends on it and death is accepted as a fact of life in the village. I must admit I had a hard time during the first hour being engaged with this film and sorting out all the characters. I found the graphic depiction of the cruel realities of village life to be ugly and often vulgar. For example, one character has sex with a village dog, an entire family is buried alive because they have been accused of stealing, and two snakes copulate next to a couple's sexual encounter in the woods. As the film progressed, however, I found it easier to accept how the brutal struggle for survival ensures continuance and self-preservation. The story concerns Orin (Sumiko Sakamota) who, in her seventieth year, must complete all the loose ends in her life before she goes to die. One widowed son must find a new wife, another has to sleep with a woman for the first time, and the third needs to be taught manners. When Orin realizes it is her time to be taken to Narayama, her son Tatsuhei (Ken Ogata) carries his mother to the mountain on his back in scenes of ethereal beauty reminiscent of Sokurov's Mother and Son. The resistance of Tatsuhei to his mother's death is familiar, yet nonetheless deeply moving. At the end of the journey, Orin clings to her resolve with tenacity and reconciliation to the inevitable. Sitting on the mountain close to her God, she is rewarded by the sudden grace of the silent snow. Watching Ballad of Narayama I was forced to confront my own feelings about the morality of suicide. Both during and since viewing the film, I have been haunted by the idea of a loved one slowly freezing to death on a mountain--for my benefit. Although I do not approve of taking one's life as a general ethic, I found Imamura's conception to be so deeply human that it became both tragic and immensely moving. The film functions on a level well beyond pat moralizing, showing the extremes that people will go to out of love for each other, and the grace that can be bestowed on such acts of sacrifice. It is truly unforgettable.

• One of my five favorite movies ever - What is uniquely human

  maple-22000-10-22

  With beautiful photography and sensitive, elegant acting, this is perhaps the best exploration of what it means to be human. As usual, Shohei Imamura draws direct parallels between the basic drives & instincts (hunger, greed, lust, anger, envy) of people and other animals. I have friends who have walked out of this movie because they found these comparisons so depressing when shown in the desperately poor rural Japan during the late 19th century. What they missed was the core intelligence, caring, self sacrifice, clear thinking and love that enabled that community, and by extension the human race, to survive such difficult times. This sympathetic portrayal of a family in a rural village is the best of ten films I have seen from Imamura, with an epic scale of Akira Kurosawa and all of the subtlety of Ozu.

• Disturbing, yes. Captivating, certainly!

  hilhorst2005-02-07

  This is a film about a culture that has evolved to deal with food scarcity. The people of the village have taken their choices to the extreme. Food is so hard to get (and keep) that the very old and very young must leave. Babiy boys are left to die in the snow, baby girls are raised only to be sold, and the old are brought to the mountain to die. The only thing there is plenty of is sex, for all but one man called Stinker by his peers. The villagers are intent to secure life for themselves and their family and will do anything necessary. In the middle of this all lives an old lady, almost 70 (the dying age) but healthy and strong. She does not want to burden the family, so she gives up her place in order for the young ones to live. Imamura registers all this without judgment. This is a lesson to most people, filmmakers in particular. See, feel, but don't judge right away. See, feel, think, and then try to understand.

• Tough stuff but asks the basic questions

  kwindrum2006-05-07

  I was a little surprised by a few of the negative comments below since I don't consider this film to be at all slow or dull. Many foreign and Asian films (Tsai Ming-Liang, Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Hou Hsiao-Hsien for example)are far more grueling and slow whereas this film is loaded with narrative events, humor, eroticism (of various sorts, not all involving contact between humans and other humans)and a profound meditation on community, responsibility and mortality. If one finds this slow then I'd imagine most foreign films besides Amelie would be off-limits. I have rarely seen a film that forces one to confront such disturbing yet important subjects. In this village where scarcity forces all over 70 to be taken to Narayama mountain to die, a 69 year old woman who is still energetic and capable must settle her son's affairs before taking her final journey. Pondering how one would live in a place where for years one would know that at 70 this would happen is one key question. Further, what are the final things one must do before dying. Finally, the film makes us confront the literal truth of bodily decay and corruption in the scenes at Narayama Mountain.

• Harsh yet beautiful

  flautist_englishdork2005-01-28

  This is actually an extraordinarily beautiful film, if one has even the remotest understanding of Japanese culture around that time period. The harshness of life in Japan made the sort of society in which people went to "be with their loved-ones" and "be with the God of the Mountain" at age 70 completely necessary. The focus of the film is the struggle for survival, and more than that, prospering, in the harsh environment of c. XIX Tohoku. The exploration of this topic takes the viewer into a study of survival through strict rules, and prospering through sexual relationships. The scenes of sexual intercourse serve to portray that even in sexual situations, the Japanese as a people have never viewed nature and animals as separate from ourselves.