zetes Review of The Ballad of Narayama

The Ballad of Narayama (1958)

Imamura's version is a bit better, but this one's great, too

[10/10 · 24 February 2013]

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.