Imamura's deeply felt retelling of a classic Japanese folk legend brings forth the primordial cruelty and beauty of nature and human nature alike. He recreates in exquisite detail the violence, sex, and bawdy humor in a remote society whose values mirror the ways of the animals-rats and rabbits, snakes and toads, carrion birds-with whom they frequently share the screen. Narayama is the mountain where the elderly from nearby villages are left to die in order to make room for a new generation and so maintain the economic and social balance. When a determined grandmother, Orin (portrayed by forty-seven-year-old Sumiko Sakamoto), demands to be taken to the mountain while she is still hale, her eldest son, Tatsuhei (Ken Ogata), is torn with grief. In late autumn, the presence of the gods is palpable as mother and son climb the mountain, in one of the most breathtakingly affecting sequences in Japanese cinema.