Obscure Japanese Film #64
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| Rentaro Mikuni |
Yasukichi (Rentaro Mikuni) is an ageing widower who can no longer control his bowels. He wants to continue living in his own house but is forced to consider moving to an old people’s home, partly out of consideration for his manic-depressive daughter, Tokuko (Shinobu Otake), with whom he lives. His situation leads to an obsession with a folk tale, The Legend of Mount Obasute, which tells of how the inhabitants of a remote mountain village used to abandon their elderly at the top of the mountain.
Mikuni with Shinobu Otake
The Legend of Mount Obasute was the basis of the 1956 story 'The Ballad of Narayama' by Shichiro Fukasawa, filmed by Keisuke Kinoshita in 1958 and by Shohei Imamura in 1983. Both versions, though differing greatly in treatment, are masterpieces of Japanese cinema. In this later film, writer-director Kaneto Shindo has chosen to incorporate lengthy black-and-white sequences which retell the same story, so the parallels with Yasukichi’s situation could not be more explicit. I’m not sure we needed to see this story again, although the most memorable images in Will to Live come from these parts of the film.
Hideko Yoshida and Masayuki Shionoya
In my view, the tone of light comedy which prevails in the rest of the picture seems inappropriate for the subject matter and prevents it from ever really becoming emotionally involving in the way it should have been. I was also unconvinced by the portrayal of what used to be called manic depression and is now known as bipolar disorder; admittedly I’m no expert, but in my limited experience based on people I’ve known, I think it usually manifests itself much more subtly than we see here.
I would recommend Masahiro Kobayashi’s Haru’s Journey and Japan’s Tragedy as being far more convincing and effective films on the theme of the problems of ageing in Japan.
Hideko Yoshida
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