Cinema
The Ballad of Narayama
楢山節考
Shohei Imamura · 1983
Synopsis
In a poor mountain village, in the nineteenth century, custom dictates that those who reach the age of seventy go to die at the summit of Narayama, so as not to deprive the others of food. Orin, sixty-nine, is still vigorous and has all her teeth, according to Electric Sheep, but she prepares for her departure and spends the year left to her settling the affairs of her family. She wants to marry off her eldest son Tatsuhei, who is reluctant to let her go, and her grandson, according to Offi, and she worries about the younger son, Risuke, who is disliked by the village.
Context
The material comes from Fukazawa Shichirō, whose story appeared in 1956 in the magazine Chūō kōron and had already been brought to the screen in 1958; Electric Sheep specifies that the film combines two of his stories. For the scene in which Orin breaks her front teeth on a stone, the actress Sakamoto Sumiko agreed to a real intervention on her teeth, a filing down or, according to Kotobank and Electric Sheep, an extraction. Distributed by Tōei, the film was released in Japan on 29 April 1983 and also received the Japan Academy Prize for best film.
Who it is for
More than two hours in a poor village, around a custom that sends the elderly to die on a mountain peak.
Prizes and reception
Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983, it was also named best film of the year by the profession in Japan.
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