Ubasuteyama  

Obasuteyama, The Mountain Where Old Women Are Abandoned, 姥捨山, 姨捨山, Ubasute, Kyoiku Senga: Ubasute Yama

In Shinano Province, there was a ruler who despised elderly individuals. According to local regulations, people were banished to an island when they turned 60 years old. On August 15th, a farmer woman neared her 60th birthday but her son loved her and decided not to turn her over to the cruel officials. Instead, he took her to a mountain and hid her there. However, he felt remorse for what he had done and concealed her under the floor of a barn. One night, a messenger from a neighboring province arrived at Shinano Province demanding an unreasonable task - threading a silk thread through a winding hole in a crystal ball. The devoted son consulted with his mother and learned how to use honey to lure an ant through the hole. The lord was pleased with the son's solution and rewarded him. Later, another messenger arrived from the neighboring province requesting that they determine which of two identical mares was the parent and which was the child. The son sought guidance from his mother again and devised a method to identify the horses. When informed by the lord that he would grant the son's wish, the young man pleaded for his mother's life. Since then, elderly individuals have been treated with respect and are no longer exiled from Shinano Province.

The film was made available online as part of the National Project for the Sustainability of Born-Digital Cinema, supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan in the fiscal 2016.