La Ballade de Narayama

In Japan, in a poor, isolated village. Orin-yan is 69 years old and knows that she must soon go to Narayama Mountain to die. She will first spend a year putting the family affairs in order…Ubasute, the Japanese practice of carrying an elderly relative to a remote place to let them die, is considered to be a legend. It inspired the writer Shichirō Fukazawa to write a short story,"A Study on the Songs of Narayama" which was adapted twice by Japanese filmmakers: in 1958 by Keisuke Kinoshita, and in 1983 by Shōhei Imamura. The latter, who has never been afraid of anything, delivers a joyfully uninhibited version of the story and makes his heroine a slayer of various taboos.

A masterpiece, the Ballade of Narayama won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

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