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Film Review: The Ballad of Narayama (1983) by Shohei Imamura

A feature about a family and their struggle to survive among tough conditions and a brutal blend of oppression and traditions which defines their life.

When asked by film scholar Tony Rayns about his take on the period drama, Japanese auteur Shohei Imamura said in an interview taking place during a retrospective of his work, that the story should present a certain kind of relevance to today's world. You can see such a connection to a universal, but rather sad truth in Imamura's original opening for his 1983 Palme d'Or winning “”, which was supposed to feature a sequence in which a family brings an elderly woman to a retirement where she, after her family is gone again, another woman of the same tells her she will never see them again, despite their promises of doing so. Even though Imamura would eventually change the opening of his script to an aerial shot of the mountain area where the story takes place, the theme stayed with the story, making “The Ballad of Narayama” a fitting entry into the director's filmography, a rather bitter portrayal of Japanese society and the machinations of a community controlled by superstition, poverty and the oppression of sexuality.

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The story takes place in a remote village close to the Narayama mountain. Given the tough conditions in this area, food and other supplies are scarce, and the harvests can only provide the bare minimum for each family, making each new family member another mouth to feed and therefore, quite a burden for the other members. Orin (Sumiko Sakamoto) is nearly seventy years old, a decisive age for the community because it means she must prepare for her long and final journey, the ascension of the mountain with her eldest son Tatsuhei (Ken Ogata), where he will leave her to connect with the spirits and die. Since she only has some months left, she is set to settle a number of affairs before the event, namely seeing that Tatsuhei has a wife and that she knows how to tend to the family once she is gone.

Meanwhile, her other two sons, Risuke () and Kesakichi (), also have to be taken care of, and while the latter wants to be married to the daughter of one of their neighbors, Risuke suffers from being the laughingstock of the village. However, since it is village custom that only the eldest son is allowed to marry and have children, Orin has to be quite careful not to lose face in front of the village community, especially since the punishment for violating their laws is quite severe and brutal.

Similar to other directors who have made their first features in the 1960s, infused with the air of revolution and contempt with the status quo, Imamura's work includes perhaps some of the bitterest truths about his home country, but also about the human condition as a whole. Despite 's breathtaking cinematography, moments of beauty are usually followed by scenes of utmost cruelty, highlighting the way these two extremes go hand in hand in a community like the one portrayed in the story. Acts such as the villagers severely punishing a family accused of stealing or Kesakichi having sex with the neighbor's daughter are juxtaposed to images of animals copulating or devouring their prey. The recurring symbolism of the snake emphasizes the idea of the story showing a cycle in the life of the villagers, but also how violence and sexuality seem to be always close to surface which we see, buried deep under the layers of snow or dirt.

In general, Imamura's approach can be described as a blend of fiction and documentary, or perhaps even better as anthropological. Over the course of one year, the final one of Orin's life according to village traditions, the eye of the camera inspects the hierarchy of the community, its methods of inclusion as well as exclusion, and, at last, the very foundation on how it functions. The curious blend of tradition and cold calculations on how many mouths one family has to feed creates the image of a curious, yet merciless society. This is especially true when it comes to the portrayal of the three sons who all suffer due to the strict rules they have to obey, a code of behavior which leads to oppressed anger and sexuality for Kesakichi and Risuke, with the latter also being “blessed” with a rather distinct smell and other oddities in his ways, making him something like the “village idiot” in the eyes of his peers.

“The Ballad of Narayama” is a bitter portrayal of the violent and merciless machinations in a small community. Considering its undefined time and place, 's feature combines utmost beauty with at times hard-to-watch acts of brutality to a story about a society based on control and oppression.

About the author

Rouven Linnarz

Ever since I watched Takeshi Kitano's "Hana-Bi" for the first time (and many times after that) I have been a cinephile. While much can be said about the technical aspects of film, coming from a small town in Germany, I cherish the notion of art showing its audience something which one does normally avoid, neglect or is unable to see for many different reasons. Often the stories told in films have helped me understand, discover and connect to something new which is a concept I would like to convey in the way I talk and write about films. Thus, I try to include some info on the background of each film as well as a short analysis (without spoilers, of course), an approach which should reflect the context of a work of art no matter what genre, director or cast. In the end, I hope to pass on my joy of watching film and talking about it.

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