Japan 2008
Directed by
Yojiro Takita
130 minutes
Rated M
Reviewed by
Sharon Hurst
Departures
Synopsis: Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) is a 30-year-old cellist who loses his job when the orchestra is disbanded. He decides to return with his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) to a house in the country left to him by his deceased mother. There he answers a job advertisement to work with “departures”, which to his shock involves the ceremonial washing and dressing of dead bodies before they are “encoffined”, all done in the presence of the close mourners.This exquisite film won the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the most heartfelt and beautiful films I’ve seen in a long while. .
Death is a subject much avoided in the Western world. Many of Hollywood’s multiplex films deal in death as a form of entertainment and with reckless lack of sensitivity. But Departures is something completely different. It is not all gloom, sadness and earnestness – it is more a celebration of the ritual of death, especially as it relates to the living, and while the story is told with compassion it is not without several humorous touches.
Daigo’s boss is Sasaki, a man who has worked all his life in this industry. He is played superbly by Tsutomu Yamazaki, a veteran of scores of Japanese films. He brings a wonderful sensibility to this character, who in an amazing manner seems to balance the sensual delights of food in his life with the often challenging details of his job. His gruff exterior conceals a man who has utmost respect for the dead and who performs the funeral rituals, tenderly, in an almost poetic way. something lovingly captured by the camera,.
Death turns up in many unexpected guises in the film: the couple buy a seemingly dead octopus for dinner, but it is alive, we hear discussions on salmon swimming upstream to breed, only to die in the process, and as Sasaki feasts almost lasciviously on fish roe he casually tells Daigo: “This is a corpse – the living eat the dead.” Meanwhile he lives in a flat spilling verdantly with life in the form of indoor plants.
As with all well-scripted films Departures is multi-faceted and the characters’ personal issues are gently handled, notably Mika’s trauma in dealing with the discovery of her husband’s job, as well as the small but critical plot thread of Daigo’s father who has been absent since Daigo was a little boy. All the while the most lovely cello music is heard on the soundtrack – both as played by Daigo or as a background score. The use of Wiegenlied by Beethoven, and that composer’s 9th Symphony is glorious – haunting, sad and beautiful at the same time.
Watch for the scenes involving the use of rocks as a medium for passing on messages. They are something different and surprising, especially as used in the lead up to a final scene which should have you reaching for the Kleenex.
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