hilhorst This is a film about a culture that has evolved to deal with food scarcity. The people of the village have taken their choices to the extreme. Food is so hard to get (and keep) that the very old and very young must leave. Babiy boys are left to die in the snow, baby girls are raised only to be sold, and the old are brought to the mountain to die. The only thing there is plenty of is sex, for all but one man called Stinker by his peers.The villagers are intent to secure life for themselves and their family and will do anything necessary. In the middle of this all lives an old lady, almost 70 (the dying age) but healthy and strong. She does not want to burden the family, so she gives up her place in order for the young ones to live.Imamura registers all this without judgment. This is a lesson to most people, filmmakers in particular. See, feel, but don't judge right away. See, feel, think, and then try to understand.

flautist_englishdork This is actually an extraordinarily beautiful film, if one has even the remotest understanding of Japanese culture around that time period. The harshness of life in Japan made the sort of society in which people went to "be with their loved-ones" and "be with the God of the Mountain" at age 70 completely necessary. The focus of the film is the struggle for survival, and more than that, prospering, in the harsh environment of c. XIX Tohoku. The exploration of this topic takes the viewer into a study of survival through strict rules, and prospering through sexual relationships. The scenes of sexual intercourse serve to portray that even in sexual situations, the Japanese as a people have never viewed nature and animals as separate from ourselves.

Aaron Kidd "Ballad of Narayama" is ultimately a film about survival.Set during the Meiji Period, the inhabitants of a tiny Japanese farming village are forced to embrace extreme tactics to ensure that they stay alive.Male babies are instantly killed with hardly any remorse, while females are usually sold. Stealing food is punishable by death, which we see in a very disturbing scene where an entire family are buried alive due their father's crime.And, ultimately, the elderly are sent to die at the base of a mountain called Narayama when they reach the age of 70.Despite the depressing tone, there is a lot of humor in this film, as well. The songs that the villagers sing about each other are pretty funny, and it's difficult not to laugh at Old Orin trying to knock her own teeth out with a rock.Speaking of Old Orin, the actress who player her (Sumiko Sakamoto) gives a wonderful performance in this film. She had her teeth surgically removed for this role, and gives a realistic depiction of a 70-year-old woman even though she was in her 40s when the film was made."Ballad of Narayama" is indeed a depressing film in many aspects, but it's also filled with humor and offers a better understanding of what life must be like in these types of situations.

gridoon Rating movies has always been a highly subjective procedure. I mean, "The Ballad of Narayama" would get only a *1/2 rating from me for being a grueling, extremely boring, completely unengaging experience, but there are undoubtedly many people that would consider this a masterpiece. Judge for yourself. It does have some memorable/shocking images that you're not likely to have seen before (they shouldn't be revealed here - just to get an idea, we see two snakes making love)....but isn't it a huge problem when we can't even tell the characters apart?