Watch The Ballad of Narayama For Free

Admirable film.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I have not, as of this writing, seen Kinoshita's 1958 film, but I'm able to remedy that since Criterion are releasing it on Blu-ray in February. It'll be interesting to compare.Imamura's film is, as one might expect, quite explicit, not least because of his naturalistic documentarian eye. This is way too explicit for my taste, but on the other hand it successfully captures that certain apprehensiveness that perhaps should be evoked in the face of the kind of deleterious brutality that society is capable of, the connivance and all.But first and foremost it all crescendoes to the climatic mountain scenes, the most lucid film-making in Imamura's oeuvre, and absolutely among the most shockingly meaningful, moving and unforgettable images ever put to film. There is the pit (echoing an earlier Imamura film), but it's the mountain that from very early on becomes the leading motif: the mundane vs. the sacred/traditional, the beastly vs. the elevated spirit, life vs. life in death, and so on. But Imamura's sly sense of humanity reminds us where we're coming from after we have started descending from the mountain. The counterpoint of what happens (Tatsuhei is the dumbstruck witness of this) just after we have departed from Orin is genius in its intensity and, yes, brutality. The contrasting elements of peace and violence, dignity and ignobility, solemnity and bitter farce, are so expertly threaded through that the effect of that one short moment left a deep mark in me. I can't say that for many moments in film, no matter how wonderful images I've witnessed. I can see myself visiting that sumptuous ending for years to come.Released on Blu-ray in Region B by the Masters of Cinema series.

This is an odd movie in which scenes of natural predation are pretentiously interspersed between innocuous, routine events, serving as thematic signposts that attempt to define and legitimize the director's morbid fascination with senseless brutality. The disheveled, unkempt, often filthy characters never gain our sympathy. Even those who come closest ultimately become immersed in the brutality of the story. The kindly grandmother casually tricks her youngest son's pregnant paramour into spending the night with a thieving family whom she knows are about to be executed by the murderous villagers. Her strong-willed son, the only person who briefly displays any palpable sentiment, participates in the execution with little concern even for the grandchild that will never be born. The victims aren't merely killed but captured in nets, thrown in a hole, and buried alive, a brutal twist to the supposed necessity of the horrible collective deed. Later, the healthy grandmother bashes her front teeth out so she'll look the part when it's her time to "go to the mountain." All through the movie, this "final journey" is alluded to as if going off to die on a mountainside up in the clouds, a place of ethereal beauty, is somehow a sacrifice fraught with spiritual significance. Unfortunately, the place where the old people are carried is nothing more than a grotesque, stinking bone yard full of broken skeletons and decomposing bodies, serviced by a flock of fat, greedy crows that pick at the dead and impatiently await their next meal. After hauling his mom up the mountain on a pack-board, the strong son simply leaves her there because she insists once again that is how it must be. Before leaving, he sees his selfish neighbor dropping off his troublesome, disabled father, kicking the terrified old man over a cliff while yelling, "Dad, go to the mountain!" The poor, senile old man, trussed up in a net, goes tumbling down the rocks like a cartwheel, bashing his brains out on the way down. This depressing story is supposed to uplift us? This is "beautiful? It's a real comment on the emptiness of our times that so many here would even begin to believe that. I'm skeptical of the notion that this film was based on fact. It comes off like an exercise in racist propaganda. I may be wrong but I think it doubtful that even primitive and isolated Japanese peasants were that uncaring and brutal.

On numerous occasions Japanese filmmaker Shohei Imamura has confessed that he is more interested in filming tales of despicable low lives than narrating stories of hypocrite Japanese middle class.This is precisely what makes his film special.It must be mentioned that an earlier version of this film was made in 1958 by veteran Japanese film maker Kinoshita Keisuke.Imamura has often stated that his film is more sensual than that of Kinoshita as it featured a Kabuki style narration of events.Ballad of Narayama is a film about ancient traditions which are hard to follow.It takes place in a Japanese village where a majority of inhabitants are low lives who lead a not so decent life.As traditions are to be respected there is a lot of respect for elders. The highlight of the film is the existential dilemma of a Japanese man whose task consists of leaving his old mother in the mountains of Narayama to be eaten alive by vultures.It is believed that forthcoming generations will live when sacrifices are made by old people.It is amazing how Imamura has managed to recreate a vivid life of ancient Japanese village.Ken Ogata is a joy to watch as an obedient son who hesitates to see his old mother die.A truly great film to learn about the eccentricities of human mind especially of the oriental kind.

if you haven't watch Kinoshita's version (in 1958), go and see > it. It's really a jewel, more poetical and original, even more strange, than this one. You won't be disappointed.