“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.” The movie was made in 1958.
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