Shohei Imamura’s Palme d’Or winner is an epic about a superstitious rural community, whose septuagenarians are required to die by taking a one-way trip up a mountain. Its stately technique meshes with bizarre, often shocking material – infanticide, bestiality and actress Sumiko Sakamoto smashing her real teeth on-screen.
Yet Imamura subversively implies that such behaviour is no less weird than society’s rules. The result is equal parts sick comedy, OAP actioner and transcendental fable of intertwinedfaith and nature.
