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  3. The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 22 Jan 2015 13:16:00
The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The Ballad of Narayama (1958)
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:38:23 | 6,58 Gb
Audio: Japanese AC3 1.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subs: English
Genre: Drama | The Criterion Collection #645

Director: Keisuke Kinoshita
Stars: Kinuyo Tanaka, Teiji Takahashi, Yûko Mochizuki

This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable new wife. Filmed almost entirely on cunningly designed studio sets, in brilliant color and widescreen, The Ballad of Narayama is a stylish and vividly formal work from Japan’s cinematic golden age, directed by the dynamic Keisuke Kinoshita.

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The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

Keisuke Kinoshita’s The Ballad of Narayama (Narayama bushiko) is a striking experimental mixture of Japanese folklore, theatrical traditions, and stunning cinematic camerawork. The story, which is derived from a novel by Shichirô Fukazawa, is based on “the legend of obasute,” the Japanese version of senicide in which the elderly are left to die on the top of a mountain in order to spare the younger members of their village the burden of caring for them. Given that obasute is folklore rather than historical practice, The Ballad of Narayama immediately takes on the hue of allegory, which is enhanced by Kinoshita’s decision to heavily stylize the film with theatrical conceits such as unnatural lighting, on-camera set changes, and the use of a masked narrator who literally sets the stage as a curtain parts for the opening credits.

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The story takes place in an unnamed village deep in the Japanese Alps some time in the mid-19th century. The central character is Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka), a solemn and determined elder who is resolute in the face of her impending 70th birthday, when ancient custom dictates that she be carried to the top of nearby Mount Narayama and left there to die of exposure and starvation. While the practice seems cruel to the point of sadistic, it is rooted in the exigencies of a remote village dealing with extreme levels of poverty and lack of sustenance, although there is also the suggestion that the practice of obasute, like many traditions, is carried on simply because it’s the way things have always been.

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

Unlike her neighbor Matayan (Seiji Miyaguchi), who steadfastly rejects this tradition and resists the attempts by his increasingly angry son (Yûnosuke Itô) to take him away, Orin accepts her fate and spend the year leading up to her 70th birthday ensuring that her family affairs are in order. This primarily means ensuring that her widower son Tatsuhei (Teiji Takahashi) finds another wife, which he does in Tamayan (Yûko Mochizuki), a widow from a neighboring village. Orin must also contend with Kesakichi (Danko Ichikawa), Tatsuhei’s impertinent and bitter son, who disapproves of his father’s remarriage and openly ridicules his grandmother.

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The family tensions in The Ballad of Narayama carry a deep emotional charge that integrates quite seamlessly into the more mythical elements of the narrative, which Kinoshita and cinematographer Hiroyuki Kusuda (who also happened to be his brother-in-law) emphasize via the extraordinarily detailed and beautiful artifice of the settings. Shot entire on studio sets, the film’s atmosphere is resolutely theatrical, although the style is sustained to a point where it begins to feel almost natural, as if the story could only unfold on a stage. Yet, at the same time, the film is resolutely cinematic, its ’Scope framing and elegant camera movements drawing us into the setting, rather than pulling us outside of it.

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The lighting is particularly impressive, with primary hues and spotlights lending the proceedings an additional layer of surreal intensity. The artificiality of the staging never detracts from the emotional core of the film, especially the heartrending moments when Tatsuhei must carry Orin up the mountain, a physically and emotionally arduous journey made all the more unbearable by Orin’s resolute silence. Yet, at the same time, it intensifies the film’s allegorical intentions, opening up the narrative beyond the immediate action to larger questions of the role of duty, sacrifice, and tradition in any culture.

The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

The extreme treatment of the elderly in the film’s worldview is unfathomable in many respects, yet still corresponds uncomfortably with the way the aged are treated in many cultures once they are no longer deemed “useful.” Kinoshita, an immensely popular and prolific filmmaker in Japan, certainly has a sentimental streak, yet The Ballad of Narayama retains a hard edge, especially in its closing moments when the film shockingly switches to a realist black-and-white style to suggest that, no matter how much we advance and develop and modernize, some things never change.
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The Ballad of Narayama (1958) [The Criterion Collection #645] [ReUp]

Special Features:
- Trailer and teaser
- New English subtitle translation

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