Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

zetes The film documents a feudal village in the distant past that lays below the mountain Narayama. By tradition, when people reach the age of 70, they are carried up the mountain by their oldest son and left their to die. Sumiko Sakamoto starts the film as a 69 year-old woman, and the film takes place over the final year of her life. The film ends with the aforementioned trek. The rest of it just shows how these people exist. There is a horrible threat of starvation for everyone there, and their entire lives revolve around it. Only the oldest child (Ken Ogata in Sakamoto's case) is allowed to marry and reproduce. The second child (Tonpei Hidari in the main family) only exists to help with farm work. Any other male children are generally left to die from exposure as infants. Girl children can be sold to salt merchants if a family so decides. I really like stories about societies that are forced to live in harsh conditions. This film is reminiscent of things like Man of Aran and Kaneto Shindo's The Island. It's quite a bit harsher than those, actually. Yet Imamura finds a deep humanity in these people, and he weaves a beautiful mosaic of how they exist within the natural world. The world of the film is so vivid that it really draws you in. Kinoshita previously made a film of the same novel in 1958 which I would love to see, but Imamura's version is pretty much a perfect movie.

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.

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.

tmalinko It is a shocker, which opens on a villager finding a dead newborn boy on his field… His only resentment is: why HIS field was chosen? The fact of murdering a baby doesn't seem to concern anyone in this hunger-stricken small village, population of which must adhere to rather radical if cruel set of regulations in order to secure the survival of their community. Set in the late 19th Century, this film will leave you to ponder the structure of our own society as you'll find many parallels with modern day. An unforgettable experience! This masterpiece is not for those who expect to be entertained. Be prepared to be haunted by the scenes of brutality and sexual fervor long after the movie is over. A must see for every serious cinema admirer.