Kaeyama Festival Kao is a Japanese film released on June 1, 1958. Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita and starring Sadaji Takahashi and Atsuyo Tanaka. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Japanese writer Shichiro Fukateshi. It describes the cruel custom of abandoning the elderly in poor rural areas.
The story of "Kaeyama Festival" takes place in a remote village in the mountains of Koshinshu, Japan in the 19th century, in this village where there is an ancient custom in this impoverished village: only the eldest son of each family can marry and have children, and other men can only work; as for the old man, when he reaches the age of 70, he must be carried by the eldest son of the family to the top of the mountain (the name is the god of the mountain) and let him die on his own.
Stills from "The Examination of the Mountain Festival"
The story is based on a legend that in a remote mountain village in ancient Shinshu, Japan, once the old man lived to the age of 70, he would be carried up the mountain by his family and dedicated to the god of The Mountain. These customs can also be said to be local unwritten rules, which seem to be conventional, and there is a set of rituals. 69-year-old Ah Ling Po is not far from the days of shanglin mountain, she often troubles her unusually strong body, she firmly believes that 70 years old is to be worshipped by the mountain god, otherwise it is a shameful thing, when the husband was reluctant to send his parents away, and she considered it a shameful thing, so that when she learned that her husband was killed by her son thirty years ago, she seemed to be calm.
In order to avoid being tortured by hunger, the villagers buried the family that stole food alive, regardless of whether it was an adult or an unborn fetus. Killing the man who cheated with his daughter, afraid of being punished by the mountain god, leaving a last word for his wife to satisfy the desires of every bachelor. There seems to be too many rules in this small mountain village, and there are too many abuses, many of which are killings carried out in the name of God.
This is a group of poor and foolish, ragged, hungry people. In this village, which is enclosed by the mountain, resources are extremely scarce. They traded salt and potatoes, used dead babies to fertilize fields, women used their bodies to get food, and the most basic needs for survival made people, like animals, just to eat and have sex. For the survival of her family, the mother-in-law caused Assun to die alive and was willing to go up the mountain. The cycle of the four seasons is calculated whether the family will be able to survive the winter. After solving the problem of sexual repression of the second son and the problem of the number of people in the family, he calmly let the eldest son Chenping, who was reluctant and hesitant but did not dare to violate the ancestral tradition, carry him up the mountain. The corpses and bones everywhere in the destination did not make her afraid, she knew that all this was fate, it was the inevitable in everyone's life, this was a reincarnation, 25 years later, Asayoshi would also carry Tatsuhei up the mountain to die, and then there would be descendants carrying Asayoshi up the mountain, which was the reincarnation of life.
Tatsuhira went down the mountain to meet Qianya carrying his father, who did not want to go up the mountain, tied with a mesh rope, and kept making a terrible cry, which made people shudder. The ancestral tradition is inviolable, seeing that his father was so fierce, he simply kicked down the cliff, like a big rock tumbling down, and smelling away was a flock of crows. Tatsuhira didn't make any moves, no one could blame anyone, everything was for his own survival, and the useless old man was the burden that should be thrown away.
The 35-year-old second son, Liping, had not yet experienced the taste of sex, and he went to the house next door and had sex with the white dog.
At the beginning of the film, a dead child is abandoned in the field.
The pregnant daughter-in-law was buried alive for theft, and the seventy-year-old was carried to death on the mountain, in order to vent his desire to grass a white dog.
The film looks directly at the ugliest side of human nature: ignorance, cruelty, absurdity, depravity, heinous, almost speechless.
The film looks directly at the ugliest side of human nature: ignorance, cruelty, absurdity, depravity, heinous, almost speechless.
The original author, Japanese writer Fukezhiro Shichiro, tells the story of a poor mountain village in ancient Shinshu, Japan, due to the long-term shortage of food, the old man will be carried to the mountain by his children to die as soon as he reaches the age of 70 to worship the mountain god.
This is an ancient story about human nature, with nothing to do with race, nothing to do with good or evil.
"Fukari Shichiro did not smear Japan, did not hand a knife to the West."
The film seems to be an ancient story from Japan, but in fact, it is a problem facing all mankind.
The conflict between ignorance and civilization is a problem facing all mankind, human beings come from ignorance, for human beings, ignorance has not gone far, the key lies in how to take the road of the future.