I don't understand the 'Sign' at the end of the film.....
There is a sign with a painted marker near the rail road tracks. What is the significance?
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share
Railroad tracks??? Did we watch the same movie???
shareIt was some sort of transit system in the background. Did you see the sign or not? :D And if you did, did you understand it? The translation was enigmatic at best.
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share
A movie about very rural Japanese peasants many many years ago, played out in a set that we think of as an abandoned village, when there weren't even guns for everyone but only a few for the whole village and those were fired by a slow-burning fuse rather than with a finger trigger, when the main communication with the 'next village' was via the travelling salt seller, with its centerpiece being an extended hike by the grown son carrying his elderly mother on a chair to 'the mountain', showed a "transit system"? I certainly missed that.
(There are two films, one made in 1958 titled "Ballad of Narayama" and one in 1983 titled "The Ballad of Narayama". This is about the 1983 one, which is the one I'm referring to. Also, in his early years director Shôhei Imamura was an assistant on several Yasujirō Ozu films, which were set in more modern times. And he made quite a few films about other subjects, including several documentaries. Could any of that explain the difference in what we saw?)
You're right. I checked the movie again, and it's the 1958 version. I thought it was the 1983 version because the DVD transfer has such BEAUTIFUL COLOR that I could have sworn it was a more modern picture. Anyway, at the end of the film, for some reason it turns black and white (a contrast from the incredible color of the rest of the film) and we see the train station.
(of course this question, now more properly belongs to the message board for the "other" film from 1958 :D
Anyway, here are some screencaps from the end of that film. I wonder if anyone knows the significance of this sign? :D
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/Coolweather762/CINEMA%20IMAGES/ Narayama01_zps325bd908.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/Coolweather762/CINEMA%20IMAGES/ Narayama02_zpsd38a6a6a.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/Coolweather762/CINEMA%20IMAGES/ Narayama03_zps8a8c5475.jpg
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r84/Coolweather762/CINEMA%20IMAGES/ Narayama04_zpsfbb282c7.jpg
Does it mean to imply that in more modern times, that this village was 'censured' in any way for their practice of abandoning old people? Is this sign some sort of 'black mark'? I don't get it. :D
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share
Having not seen the 1958 version (yet), I'm not certain about the answer to your query. But I suspect this comment that I found in the IMDb review of that 1958 version is relevant: "At the end of the film, a sudden switch to non-theatrical black and white has a disappearing train and a station called 'The Abandoning Place.'"
You've made me very curious about the older version. I initially thought this newer version was the "best" version, because it won the Palme d'Or, because it has a well-known director, and because it's the only version Netflix has. But I see now that several reviewers thought the older version was the better one. And from amazon.com I see that the older version occasioned a Criterion release a few years ago. So I'm going to buy a copy and watch it. (The original DVD of the older version is apparently not easily available in this country, so value what you have.)
Apparently one significant difference is while the newer version covers two closely related books, the older version covers just one of those books (and so contains little about Yakko). Apparently another significant difference is the newer one is in a "realistic" style while the older one is in a "Kabuki" style.
:D
I hope you see it and let us know what you think! :D
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share
1) In further answer to your original question, the subtitles on the Criterion re-release translate the sign naming the railway station as 'OBASUTE "Abandonment of Old People"'.
2) Perhaps one of the reasons the colors seem so vivid is the Kabuki-influenced style included lots of very dramatic colored lighting, so even if it's faded the hues will still be significantly deeper than with most films.
3) For my comments comparing the two versions, see the separate qestion "Which Version?". I put my comments there (rather than here) so they'd be easier to find from the title of the message item.