The Ballad of Narayama (1958)

  'The Ballad of Narayama' (Narayama Bushiko) is a 1958 Japanese film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. It was remade by Shohei Imamura in 1983.

  The film tells the sad story of a village, set hundreds of years ago. Tradition dictates before an elder's 70th birthday, they must travel to the top of the local 'Mount Narayama' on the back of their sons and daughters, to be left up there to die. We are introduced to a Japanese family: Orin the 69 year old Granmother, Tatsuhei the widowed son and the arrogant grandson, who's girlfriend is pregnant. Before Orin becomes a great grandmother, she is adament to follow her family tradition and be left ontop of the mountain. Meanwhile, Tatsuhei is introduced to Tamayan, who is also 45 and lives in the next village. There is no time for celebration, as the new year is approaching and the mother-son relationship is getting increasingly emotional.

  Everyone knows that remakes are worse than the originals. There are a few exceptions (The Fly, The Thing) where the remake is better than the original. Never have I seen a film which is so equally as good as the sequel. There are plenty of differences between the two, firstly this version is told in Kabuki Style, so the many speech-less moments are filled with clinging guitars and an old man singing. This may be a hindrance to some, but I feel it adds to the film, making it more distinctively Japanese. The second difference is that the original is filmed entirely on human created sets. The artistic style of this film is astounding, especially the autumn scenes with the crisp brown leaves. The colour of the sky changes between purple, red and blue, similar to Kurosawa's later works (Ran, Kagemusha, Madadayo, Dodes'Ka-Den).

  As every film made now seems to be love-orientated, films made by Japan (Pre-New Wave), were always about honour(Seven Samurai), community (Ikiru), and society (Akensen Chitai). This film breaks from the mould and is orientated about family, and family bonds as well as the mother-son relationship. Even Freud would cry at this film, but I warning you not to watch it if you have recently experienced loss, as the film is a total tear-jerker.

TO CONCLUDE
The atmosphere the setting has created combined with the sad family-orientated subject matter makes this a film unlike any other.

SCORE
78