The Ballad of Narayama - A Movie Review
The Ballad of
Narayama - A Movie review & more (Rating - ****4/5)
A
1983 Japanese film directed by Shohei Imamura based on a novel by Shichiro
Fukasawa. The movie has won Palme D’Ore
in Cannes Film Festival. This movie was
screened in one of the International Film Festival that took place in Mumbai in
1984.
The
director Shohei Imamura is a contemporary of famous Japanese film maker Akira
Kurasowa. The Ballad of Narayama is an indelible and transfixing poem of a
movie that packs substantial and complicated emotional punch.
This
is the story of a famished Japanese village which followed a custom of
abandoning their elders in the foot of a snow capped mountain to die when they
attain the age of 70. The movie revolves
around an old woman and her life after 69 years awaiting a full year to prepare
for her final journey to Mount Nara.
The
movie is inspired by a 1958 film “Narayama Bushi Ko” aka “The Ballad of Narayama”. The Director Shohei Imamura himself has
written the Screen Play of the movie and throws up a question to the society
that how can one afford to leave their old people to their fate to meet with
their death.
SYNOPSIS -
The story is set
in the 19th century in a remote and severely impoverished mountain village in
northern Japan. In this fictional society, once the elderly have reached the
age of 70 they are brought up Mount Nara, where ancient gods reside, and left
to die hopefully blessed by the deities
-- this sacrifice will free up food for someone else in the village. Orin
(Sumiko Sakamoto) is a 69-year-old grandmother living with one of her sons and
three grandchildren and she prepares for her departure for an entire year.
Among other activities she gets a new wife for her oldest son, and then shows
the wife where the best place is for catching fish and how to take care of the
family. At the top of the mountain, hundreds of skeletons and hungry birds wait
for the next arrivals as the resigned grandmother and one grieving son make the
final ascent together, the woman strapped to her son's back.
If anyone refuse
to follow this system, the entire family of his/her will be ostracized and will
be made to suffer. The old woman foreseeing the trouble her family is up to
makes up her mind to follow the ritual.
Director Imamura
has trenchantly probed the nature of inhumanity and survival in a small,
everyman's village. The director puts great store by visual repetitions that
emphasize the oneness of all nature. His
symbolic portrayal of love making is praiseworthy. The movie is a wild, realistic and raw
portrait of life in a small Japanese village.
Imamura is also
fond of sequences that announce the change of seasons. The Winter landscape melts toward Spring and
climaxes in an explosion of buds and grass accompanied by the chirping of birds
and the babbling of brooks containing frisky trout.
The duration of
the movie is 130 minutes. The cinematography is excellent. The movie has some sparkling performances
especially by Sumiko Sakamoto as the central character Orin, the old woman and
Ken Ogata as Tatsuhei
The
practice of this custom is blood-curdling and must be condemned. This barbarous system shown in the movie is
most cruel by any standards. The story
merits a debate in our society about the care and respect for our elders.
The
younger generations busy with their own selfish life forget to take care of
their parents and they are made to live with heart-breaking feelings and
negligence. Isn’t it our duty to take care of our parents who taught us to take
the baby steps and made many sacrifices in their life to shape up our destiny
for better education, health and wellness?
The
moral of the movie suggests parental care, love and due attention.
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