The Ballad of Narayama (blu ray & DVD)

THE BALAD OF NARAYAMA (1983) directed by Shohei Imamura.

Orin, approaching her 70th birthday, faces having to go to Mount Narayama to die, as her remote mountain village expects. Imamura explores how an apparently civilised village society deals with mortality and the natural elements with humour and horror.

Based on two stories by SHICHIRO FUKAZAWA and Cannes Palme d'Or winner.

Creating a vividly realised inverse image of 'civilised' society with typical directness and black humour, Imamura presents a bracingly unsentimental rumination on mortality and an engrossing study of a community's struggles against the natural elements. Handled with a masterful control and simplicity, moving effortlessly between the comic and the horrific, The Ballad of Narayama is one of the legendary director's deepest, richest works, and ranks among the finest films of its decade.