The Ballad of Narayama
Only Time Could Change the Cruelty of Tradition… Only Their Love Could Survive It…
A profound meditation on mortality, duty, and maternal love set against a ritualized practice of ritual death, balancing tenderness with existential darkness.
In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.
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