“The Ballad of Narayama” (1958)

The Ballad of Narayama

Grade: A+

Presented as a kabuki-inflected fable, the highly stylized Ballad of Narayama is one of the greatest and most unique — and most unsettling — Japanese films ever made.

Directing:

Filmmaker Keisuke Kinoshita delivers beautiful visuals that take advantage of the film’s deliberate artifice, offsetting the harsh cruelty and impending doom of the storyline with colorful backdrops, artfully constructed sets and eye-catching one-take transitions.

Acting:

Lead actress Kinuyo Tanaka, nearing age 50 at the time of filming, portrays the nearly-70-year-old Orin with tremendous pathos and humility, a terrific performance of subdued emotion that stands out amongst the theatrical nature of the film, facing death with sympathy and stoicism; powerful acting matched by Teiji Takahashi as her conflicted son, Tatsuhei.

Writing:

An open-minded approach is necessary when viewing The Ballad of Narayama: do not be perturbed by the kabuki sprechgesang narration, nor the characters’ stubbornness to adhere to the assisted-suicide practice of ubasute. If you can get past the initial culture shock (even other Japanese films aren’t this Japanese), then you’ll be fully immersed in the fantasy.

Music:

The music is the film’s defining feature, with sharp expressionist vocal narration and eerie shamisen melodies that add palpable dramatic propulsion to the haunting storyline, especially in the nearly wordless final act — the type of soundtrack that could be your gateway to Edo-era classical folk music.

Ending (SPOILERS):

The finale, in which the grieving son finally leaves his resigned mother to die on the mountain of Narayama, is the film’s greatest sequence; a stunning depiction of the lands of the dead that is vivid and harrowing, driven entirely by Keisuke’s combo of dreamlike imagery and ancient music. Tragic, bleak, absolute.

Unexpectedly, the final shot shifts to modern-day black-and-white, showing a train pulling into a station, perhaps emphasizing how much things have changed, or how much things haven’t. Are we still sending the old off to die? Should we fear the fateful inevitability of death? It’s a very strange yet stimulating scene to close on, raising more questions than answers, curiously turning Narayama from stylish fable to ambiguous avant-garde experiment.

“The harvest in autumn brings sorrow” — Narrator

Why The Ballad of Narayama gets an A+

A unique, thought-provoking, surreal fantasy, like Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948) and Herzog’s The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974).

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