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.