So Roger Ebert had this on his list of Great Movies, and it’s in Hulu’s Criterion Collection selection, so bam, let’s watch it. I didn’t know what to expect, but certainly didn’t expect people singing about how their grandmother has 33 demon teeth, which is actually like a whole subplot (with a horrifying payoff) in this movie about how old people need to go to Narayama mountain to die when they’re 70.

It’s a very odd movie, not least because I can’t tell whether the movie wants us to be appalled at exposing the elderly to die, or wants us to be sympathizing with the old woman who is eager to do her duty and appalled at the (rather unsympathetically portrayed) old neighbor dude who struggles against it. That’s among the piles of things that I’m not sure of the significance of. Like, they’re having white rice as their “once a year” special treat — is that supposed to show how desperately poor they are, or is that actually somewhat normal for old-timey rural Japan? Is the grandson impregnating a woman he’s not married to supposed to show that he’s a feckless ne’er-do-well, or is that not really important?

Visually, it’s interesting, because it’s done in a very stagey way. Like, at times the lights will go down, and sets will move out of the way and a new backdrop will come up, that level of stagey-ness. If Ebert is to be believed, this is a deliberate choice of this movie and not just the level of film-making technique at the time, but it definitely has the feel of making it seem like a filmed play more than a movie, a feeling backed up by the onscreen narrator guy who introduces the movie.

Ultimately this is the kind of thing I can easily recommend, but not in the sense that it’s a work that will pull you in instantly for a 90 minute thrill-ride, but in the sense that it’s a work that will not and that you will not be sure you have actually understood the intentions and implications of.

Also, as always I’m annoyed that I don’t watch more artsy movies than I do. This was as long as two episodes of Enterprise, and it’s really, really, really, really, really, really hard to argue that I’m getting more out of two rando episodes of a mediocre SF show than I did out of this movie, you know? And yet I guarantee that I will watch another episode of Enterprise (and probably many of them) before I watch another Criterion Collection movie.