19th century Japan. 69-year-old Orin prepares herself for an inevitable yet frightening ritual. In her small village, where food is rare, anyone who lives to 70 is hauled to the mountaintop by their children and left there to die. But before, she must help her eldest son to find a wife.

The director’s first Palme d’Or-winner, this film epitomizes the transgressive qualities that make Shōhei Imamura one of Japan’s greatest directors. Sex, death, squalor and horror perpetually intertwine in this year-spanning portrait of instinct, survival and private dignity in brutal circumstances.