The Ballad of Narayama-
Keisuke Kinoshita

Going back in catalogs to see where today's directors got their influences from—the direct source—has come to be one of the unexpected and highly enjoyable aspects of broadening my cinematic palate.

*Not to mention, it also comes with the added bonus of folks misperceiving you as some sort of higher-level omniscient intellectual because you simply watched a film and were able to grasp fairly simple concepts. But how many people are left on this planet (especially in America) that are cognizant of such things like ubasute?*

I have found that the more I watch from a greater and greater varietal of film genres, the less apprehensive I am at watching films that are completely unfamiliar to me.

It comes to be as it was originally intended: an adventure.

In The Ballad of Narayama we get a Kabuki theater stage presentation of a family wrestling with the difficulties that accompany an old guards obstinate devotion to culture. Or, a religious practice of the aforementioned ubasute. Ubasute is a largely mythical practice that stems from Indian Buddhist mythology in which, as a means of easing an elderly grandmothers transition from life into the after-life, she is carried to the top of a holy mountain by her son, and then left there on her own to basically wait for death to come and take her.

My knowledge of the practice is limited to only Wikipedia and a few other google searches that I skimmed through. But the real life instances seem to be very rare. And is akin to Japanese culture as Greek mythology is to Grecian culture. Sure, there are the tales associated to the Greeks of Demigods such as Prometheus, the God of fire, who stole the flame from Zeus as a gift to humanity and as a punishment for his misdeeds, was forever tethered to a boulder, disembowled, and left as lunch meat for eagles to come and feast upon his liver, which would then grow overnight and begin the process over again in the morning.

I'm not sure as to the extent that this is embedded into any actual religious aspect of any sect that exists anymore. Nor can I verify whether or not people believe in such things as having occurred in some sort of realm either. But I think the same thing can be applied to the practice of ubasute. Much like anything blown out of proportion. I'm sure that somewhere in sometime this may have happened, but most likely not to the extent portrayed in The Ballad of Narayama. Which served as the central theme.

I found it very interesting how, what seems to be an antiquated and obscene right of passage in this film, seems to exist in much subtler forms in today's day and age.

Again, I can only base my knowledge on the source of other films. But, in The Farewell—starring Awkwafina and directed by Lulu Wang—we come to see a reverse form of ubasute. Where the grandmother matriarch of a large family is deliberately kept in the dark from a cancer diagnosis by her children and grandchildren. The customary intention being that it is the children's responsibility to carry the weight of the burden, so that the grandmothers transition into the next life is with as little discomfort as possible.

In America (at least from my direct experience) similar efforts to suppress particularly poignant moments in life come with far less structure. Family fights, transgressions, grudges, or resentments are merely locked inside or swept under the rug so the heads of family can rest easy in their final days under the delusion that they raised a replicant family tree of The Brady Bunch, where everyone got a long swell and loved each other unconditionally.

In reality this is never the case, as most often once the parents pass away it acts like the lid of a boiling pot flying into the air from the underlying pressure. The gloves then come off and rivalries erupt into court rooms or online mudslinging. And there is absolutely no regard for how this may upset the very spirits of which they were so loyal to.

Such isn't the case in The Ballad of Narayama.

Instead, the film focuses on the turmoil of the son as he battles the internal conflict of knowing that the dying custom his Grandmother insists upon inducing upon herself is wrong, but also not wanting to forsake what is regarded as a sacred path and upset the God's.

The transition from scene to scene was very cool. The narrator sings the thoughts of each character and updates the audience on the turmoil and it almost feels as if he turns a page with each transition. It becomes heartbreaking as you watch the kindhearted grandmother begin to abuse herself to keep in cadence with a scheduled death. You can see that she is healthy, and if she wished, she could probably go onto live another decade (or two) at least. But her heart is set on dedicating her life to appeasing the God's, and the calendar is marked at a specific time and date when she will trek up the mountain path to the holy grounds and wait in the snow as death through starvation and hypothermia comes to take her. Especially jarring is, when her body refuses to age as is appropriate to those on the brink of death, she resorts to smashing her teeth out with a rock, leaving a mess of bloody gums through which she smiles, satisfied at her new outfit that is now fit for expiration. And you really begin to feel for the son as he watches his mother dissolve into this battered human being. Almost like watching a cancer ridden relative cart their oxygen tank outside after Christmas dinner for a Newport.

This same aspect was visited in Midsommar, albeit in a much poorer fashion, when the old people leap off of a cliff and are then smashed in the head with a mallet. And the travels of the characters through colorful huts adorned with flowers and colorful architecture was also copied in "Beau's Afraid".

But unlike those piece of shit films, The Ballad of Narayama executes a rather morbid tale with profound finesse in a fashion that was way beyond its time.

Our cultures may be vastly different in our dealing with ordeals, but the conflicts we endure are actually very similar in nature.

Stars: ****1/2

Verdict: Watch

Cousins: The Farewell, Giant, Sayonara, Flower Drum Song, Y Tu Mama Tambien