This haunting, kabuki-inflected version of a Japanese folk legend is set in a remote mountain village, where food is scarce and tradition dictates that citizens who have reached their seventieth year must be carried to the... more » summit of Mount Narayama and left there to die. The sacrificial elder at the center of the tale is Orin (Ugetsu?s Kinuyo Tanaka), a dignified and dutiful woman who spends her dwindling days securing the happiness of her loyal widowed son with a respectable new wife. Filmed almost entirely on cunningly designed studio sets, in brilliant color and widescreen, The Ballad of Narayama is a stylish and vividly formal work from Japan?s cinematic golden age, directed by the dynamic Keisuke Kinoshita (Twenty-four Eyes).« less