The Japan Foundation, Sydney & ACMI present
The Ballad of Narayama (Digitally restored)
楢山節考
When
Sat 2 Nov 2024
See below for additional related events
With nature as a silent witness, the countdown to death begins.
In a remote village in 19th century Japan, a grim tradition continues: those who reach the age of 70 must be left to die at the summit of Mount Narayama. The strong-willed Orin, who is on the brink of reaching the cut-off age, is at peace with her morbid fate. But before her final moment arrives, she decides she must prepare by attending to unfinished family business, including arranging her eldest son Tatsuhei’s marriage and resolving various village conflicts.
Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes, The Ballad of Narayama unflinchingly explores themes of mortality and family duty, along with the reality of the harshness of rural life. Under Imamura’s masterful direction, this captivating drama emphasises the raw beauty and brutality of nature, while also reminding us that all human beings cannot escape the cycles of life.
..this movie is much more passionate than I've made it sound: darker, bloodier, more fearsome. It was directed by Shohei Imamura, whose films deal with the ways we pass laws to govern our deepest impulses, and then are driven to break those laws.
After the screening
Talk 4:55pm–5:40pm
Adrian Danks, Associate Professor at RMIT University and Co-curator and President of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, will chart Imamura’s movement from the youth cycle of the early 1960s to his work’s increasing preoccupation with the resilience and place of women in Japanese society in such landmark films as Insect Woman and The Ballad of Narayama.
The talk will also examine the director’s anthropological and often primal approach to filmmaking which forges together fiction and documentary and highlights aspects of Japanese life and society that persist in the face of wide-scale modernisation and westernisation.
Don't miss GodzillaFest
Thu 31 Oct - Sun 3 Nov 2024
We’re throwing a gigantic 70th birthday bash for the Kaiju king – and you’re all invited.
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