Natural Culturalism in The Ballad of Narayama: A Study of Shohei Imamura's Thematic Concerns

In 1958, Keisuke Kinoshita adapted Shichiro Fukasawa's Narayamabushi-ko into a movie with a strong flavor of classical kabuki, an attempt which met with great success. Some 25 years later, Shohei Imamura adapted the same novel for the screen with the same title, hereafter referred to by its English title, The Ballad of Narayama, which was awarded the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France in 1983. Keiko McDonald (1994: 124) comments that compared to Kinoshita's classical theatrical approach, Imamura's version is deeply rooted in realism.