|
|||||||||||||||
Famed physicist Albert Einstein paid a visit to the country of Japan to give a lecture at a university and afterwards found himself in conversation with a Buddhist Minister. When asked about his faith, Einstein explained that he was an atheist…that he simply could not believe in what he could not prove with science. It was then that he was told the popular Japanese folk tale of Ubasute. Ubasute translates to “abandoning an old woman” and makes reference to a time of hardship in the central mountains of Honshu Island. These times were so hard that in order to survive on the meager food supply, those who reached age 70 were taken into the hills and abandoned to die, leaving their share of sustenance to their younger relatives, friends and neighbors. In the Ubasute tale, a young man is taking his mother into the hills after her goodbye party and has her nearly deep enough in the wilds that she will not be able to find her way back when he notices her dropping bits of twigs on the ground…marking a trail. The son admonishes his mother for the indiscretion! She knows she must submit to her fate for the good of those younger in life…she knows that to return against tradition would stain her family’s name. But when the mother explains that the trail she was leaving was for her son, to ensure his safe return, he learns a valuable lesson. He realizes at that time that he never really knew the true woman his mother was inside; instead believing he knew her through a lifetime of actions only. The Minister told Einstein that it is this true inner self we all possess…this core of our being which can stay hidden from others, but which we must all strive to perfect, that is not a product of our genetic makeup. It is this true being, which lives on after our bodies are dead, that proves beyond doubt that there is something more. Touched by this message, Einstein promised that he would never call himself atheist again… Like Einstein, director Shohei Imamura displayed the traits of a cynic…both fascinated with life and its workings and possessing a somewhat dim view of the same. This much is evidenced in the director’s cinematic trips through the awful side of life, such as in The Insect Woman or Vengeance Is Mine. Obsessed with the plight of the lower class, the causes of human depravity and exploring the sameness/differences between animals and mankind, Imamura must have found something within the tale of Ubasute that struck a similar chord as the one struck within an analytical German scientist...something which he would express in The Ballad of Narayama. While it possesses all the grit, grime and grotesquery that followers of his work have come to expect and appreciate, this work of Imamura’s goes above and beyond in the level of beauty, hopefulness and the power of the human spirit’s strive for perfection. Tatsuhei is not doing to well in this thing called life, and that is taking into account the general state of things in the village he calls home. Infants are routinely abandoned to die if born into a home that lacks in food for its existing members or sold to passing merchants. Those who would steal food to survive are buried alive in a joint sentence passed by those who they claimed as friends and neighbors. Most live in shanties, merely a step above living in the mud with the farm animals. But through all of this, Tatsuhei still sticks out as having a hard time of it. He is middle aged, with no spouse and still a virgin, is mocked as having sexual designs on the cattle, is awkward and lacking in confidence, has a mother who has almost reached the age of Ubasute, and truthfully is simply having a hard time agreeing with or understanding the beliefs and actions of those around him. Orin is Tatsuhei’s distraught mother. With her time to die approaching so quickly, what is she to do with her disappointing son? She simply must find a way to get him with a woman. While her oldest male child schemes and plots behind her back, she still must find the recent widower a new wife, and then there is the matter of the hell-child of a grandson; something definitely is going to have to happen there. And last, but certainly not least, there are so many people in the village who have scores that must be settled…wrongs to be set right. An entire life needs wrapping up…all the daily choices that could “wait until tomorrow” must be seen to now. And of course there is still the matter of surviving until the day she must be condemned to death… There have been films before which carried with them the mantle of human drama, but even the most devout film student would be hard pressed to find a film which more deeply explores the nasty underbelly of our society, by contrasting it with this totally foreign one. All along we are asked if we could tolerate the events unfolding on screen, and while thinking through our answers we get a cold look at just how much we DO tolerate in our current society. Can it be said that one is better than the other? I think hardly… But amongst this tragic mirror’s images comes the reassurance that while no life is perfect, and indeed most bounce back and forth between decent and awful, it is the few rare moments that transcend into wonderful which make the whole ordeal worth suffering through. Imamura manages to give credence to something I decided on long ago, which is that only those who understand how screwed-up life really is will ever truly enjoy its finer moments. Those who wade through everything with rose-colored glasses will never know the peaks of elation when things are at their best.
There is a lot of weighty intellectual material presented here, much of which won’t sink in until processing the film days later, but this is the medium of filmmaking after all. And in this more immediate medium Imamura excels as well. The director’s choices of what to present onscreen tugs your emotional ride to and fro; never letting your head settle on one theory or judgment. Whether it is the old lady amongst the remains of those who perished in the mountains before her, the gentle kissing of new snowflakes, lovers embracing or animals fornicating in the wild abandon which only their selfish mindlessness can achieve…what passes across the screen is astounding. What passes through your heart as this touching tale unfolds is even more so. While normally I don’t put much credence in these things, I do find it no surprise at all that The Ballad of Narayama took home the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival…a title which is every bit deserved. I mentioned something similar in a recent review for the film Shinsengumi, but let me say it again here because it is so fitting. Thank God we have studios like AnimEigo who have realized that there are certain films audiences simply must be allowed, and persuaded if necessary, to see. This film will most definitely change your perspective of the Japanese period drama…and just might add a little something to your perspective of life. -aaron-
|
|||||||||||||||
