Sorry, this movie sucks

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

In Kabuki style, the film tells the story of a remote mountain village where the scarcity of food leads to a voluntary but socially-enforced policy in which relatives carry 70-year-old family members up Narayama mountain to die.Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film a maximum 4 stars, and added it to his Great Movies list in 2013, making it the final film he added to the list before his death. In a June 1961 review in The New York Times, A.H. Weiler called the film "an odd and colorful evocation of Japan's past that is only occasionally striking"; "It is stylized and occasionally graphic fare in the manner of the Kabuki Theatre, which is realistically staged, but decidedly strange to Western tastes." I have to respectfully disagree with Weiler. Perhaps at the time the film was strange to Western taste. I couldn't speak to that. But I find it quite refreshing, and really enjoy how they made it obvious that the story was told on a stage. Rather than hide the stag as American films do, this one embraces it, so you know you are really watching a story and it need not be any more than that. And yet, it is not just theater but a bigger experience.

I had seen Shohei Imamura's version of this novel a few years ago, and it ranks as one of my favorite films. This earlier version, presented as a sort of kabuki-like play, loses a bit of its power because it streamlines the narrative a bit (not that I've read it; I suppose Imamura could have added details), but it's quite a wonder itself. The focus is more on the grandmother, the old woman who is to be taken and then abandoned on Narayama, here played by Kinuyo Tanaka. Teiji Takahashi (who acted in several Ozu films) plays her son, the man who is reluctant to follow the tradition. The acting is very good, though obviously stylized. What one will probably most remember about this version of the story is the gorgeous, painterly cinematography. It's all deliberately artificial, with a lot of painted backdrops and seamless scene transitions (Joe Wright's recent Anna Karenina adaptation may have been directly influenced by it). One moment that I found unintentionally funny: a bunch of crows are startled at one point and start to fly around, and a couple of them run into the matte painting in the background and have to turn around. The film is quite a wonder to behold, and the emotional heft of the story still works. It's certainly a nice companion piece to Imamura's masterpiece.

Made available on Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection, Kinoshita's highly stylized exploration of the Narayama story is a deliciously stunning exploration of the possibilities of colour, and has some of the most inventive use of transition in film.You might be familiar with the far more explicit and naturalistic film version of the same story from 1983, made by Shôhei Imamura, and knowledge of that film greatly enhanced my viewing of this. These two films are worlds apart, in fact so much that it feels that Imamura's film openly converses with this, since its theatricality seems to almost provoke the kind of hyper-naturalism inherent in the Imamura. Another film that enriches this is Kinugasa's "Jigokumon" ("Gates of Hell", 1953), available on Region B Blu-ray courtesy of the Masters of Cinema, and soon to be released by Criterion, as well.I didn't know much of Kinoshita before this, only the biographical information concerning his relationship with Masaki Kobayashi, who served as his apprentice and whose film "Harakiri" (1962) Kinoshita openly disliked (he reversed his opinion later). I think it's somewhat ironic since Kobayashi's use of lighting certainly finds a compeer here, and I think this definitely encouraged "Kwaidan" (1964) to go to the lengths it did.

One of the most fascinating books I've read in recent years is Sherwin Nuland's How We Die. In it he relates the exact physical progression of major diseases. But something that fascinates me even more is how our frame of mind changes our perception. I can think of no better example in the realm of death and dying than this ancient tale of 'going up the mountain to die.' Set in an indeterminate time in old Japan, Ballad of Narayama chronicles two elderly people's preparations for death. One of them is Orin. She is a grandmother calmly facing what lies ahead, and putting her affairs (especially those of her family and how they will cope with her dying) into some sort of harmonious picture, so she doesn't have to worry about them. Her neighbour, a man of similar age, is dreading it.We should maybe bear in mind that a strong spirit of empathy pervades Japanese society, more so than in the West. Human relations are very closely knit and there is much less drive for individualism and autonomy than in the West. Community traditions can play a very big part. And the tradition in the village where these people live is that when people reach a certain age they go up the mountain and die.Orin takes delight in the 'glowing crimson of the autumn maple.' She has an almost non-theistic spirituality, an idealism and altruism towards others, as well as a humility about her own readiness for death. On the one hand, she says, "The sooner I go, the more the gods will favour me." But she is strangely ashamed of having a full set of teeth. She feels it would be more proper to go to her death as a toothless hag.If you are spiritually minded, it is quite easy to say that she is in tune with her Shinto or Buddhist beliefs. But if we look at her psychology she has created a world for herself that is filled with attitudes that make her feel good about herself. The thought of her 'pilgrimage' to Narayama fills her with poetic ideas, even if she has no illusions about suffering.The elderly man on the other hand, clings to his life. He is so obnoxious that his family react badly. They eventually refuse to feed him. "Instead of suffering so, go to Narayama," Orin bids him. "Narayama is the abode of the gods, a place of bliss and blessings." Although it is physically the same place for both of them, it is in effect a very different place for Orin because of her frame of mind. I think the lack of overt religiosity in the film emphasises this. Religion, for those that like it, simply makes, we could say, a ready made poem for us to fit into. Of course, forcing the old man up the hill is a pretty heinous act - and one that the film does not shirk from dealing with.Often when we watch a film, we want to get submerged in the 'story.' But this can deflect from considering the point that the artist wants to make. The playwright Bertolt Brecht understood this and developed many of his influential theories after watching Japanese theatre. Borrowing from the Kabuki tradition, Ballad of Narayama distances the viewer from the story by creating a very theatrical effect. At the same time, various devices are used to make sure we remain gripped and pay attention.The film is accompanied by expository chants of a 'jyuri' narrator. There is frequently an unashamed and flamboyant staginess. For instance, a silk backdrop is loosed to reveal a forest at night. What might be considered silly in western cinema works with a Shakespearean majesty here. The film is visually and musically arresting. It doesn't rely on 'realism' to create an effect. We start thinking about the mental states and moral dilemmas of what is patently a modern fairy tale rather than just entertainment.At the end of the film, a sudden switch to non-theatrical black and white has a disappearing train and a station called 'The Abandoning Place.'