The Ballad of Narayama

Synopsis

In an impoverished 19th-century mountain village where resources are scarce, an ancient ritual known as 'ubasute' dictates that elders reaching seventy must be carried on their son's back up to the freezing summit of Mount Narayama to die exposed to the gods, following the fierce, toothy matriarch Orin who methodically arranges her family's future before making the sacred journey into the snow. Shohei Imamura's Cannes Palme d'Or-winning earthbound masterpiece.