The Ballad of Narayama on the other hand feels like a purposeful and almost psychological exploration of what human life both used to be and what it is turning farther and farther away from.

Much of this film surrounds the idea of death and what that meant to a village of pastoralists in the mountains of Japan. In this area, whenever a person reaches the age of 70, they are carried off to a mountaintop and left there to fend for themselves and eventually die. The thinking behind is that they are unable to contribute successfully to the survival of the village, and therefore, they should not be able to be a part of it. It's a harsh sentiment, but one that many cultures have been practicing for years.

That description is a rather reductive one, but it speaks to the almost animalistic way that these people live and the black and white way that they treat life and death and everyday life – from tossing dead babies aside to rot on the ground to desperate sex acts that the film is peppered with.

The purpose it would seem is to talk directly to our modern spirit, reminding us that all of our actions and intentions these days stem from this same base animalistic spirit. I feel like Imamura is questioning our egos throughout this film, especially in the character of the younger men of the village who seem lost and in slapstick mode throughout.

What, thankfully, he does not do is turn this into a moral argument about where society has gone wrong and how we are failing ourselves by not reverting back to these base instincts. No, I think Imamura sees the purpose of both eras in history, but wants us to at least be honest with ourselves about where every move we make spurs from and to not be afraid to admit that nor tart it up with psychology.