OKURIBITO (DEPARTURES)

Japan, 2008, 130 minutes, Colour.
Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki.
Directed by Yojiro Taki.

A fine, often beautiful, film that can be recommended. It won the 2008 Best Foreign Film Oscar over Waltz with Bashir and The Class, strong competition.

However, you might be wondering during the first ten minutes. It begins slowly and solemnly with ceremonial and ritual for the dead. The, without warning, it becomes quite farcical and you wonder where you are. This is pre-credits. And immediately after the credits there is an orchestra playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy with a full choir. What is this film? What are the departures?

Actually, the central character of the film, the young Daigo, a cello player whose orchestra is shut down, wonders about this same question when he applies for a job on returning to his home town. He thinks he will work for a travel agent or be a tour guide. The Japanese title of the film is said to mean, 'the one who sees persons off...'. But, he is to be a 'coffinator', an embalmer of the dead who performs his duties with religious atmosphere, reverent ceremonial and a decorum that enables the grieving family and mourners to pay their respects to the dead and experience the solemnity of the final rite of passage. Death is seen, in Buddhist and eastern religion terms, not as the end but as the gateway to the next stage of existence.

We are fascinated with the repetition of this ceremony, the ritual meticulously the same, but the response of the mourners so different – and we realise that the manager and Daigo are contributing to a sense of human dignity and an acknowledgement of the life of the dead person as well as the survivors.

That all sounds very, very serious, and so it is. However, the film is interspersed with a great deal of humour, especially in Daigo's personal journey from being very sick at his first case to a final ritual which brings the whole drama, the embalming, his marriage, his family and the absence of his father, to a very satisfying conclusion.

Masahiro Matoko gives a finely nuanced performance, just the right seriousness and comedy, an acute sense of timing and facial expressions indicating the depths of the character. Tustomu Yamizaki brings a blend of the offhand and the dedicated to his role as the manager.

Beautiful to look at (which is sometimes rather challenging through our tears), it is a wonderful combination of the realistically mundane, the sadness of life and its uncertainties, yet the funny side of human foibles, the emotion of music and an opportunity (without being preached at) for the audience to really respond emotionally to and intellectually think about the deeper aspects of life and death.

SIGNIS award winner, Washington DC, 2009.

1.The awards? The Oscar? Canadian and Japanese awards?

2.The title: the reference to deaths, the Buddhist theme of death as a gateway, people meeting again? The attitude of the variety of religions presented? Embalming, coffinating? The literal title: the one who sees people off…?

3.The treatment of life and death, people able to face the realities of death, the Japanese tradition? The contrast with western avoidance of death?

4.The blend of the serious and the comic, the range of moods, the flow from one mood to the other? Life as funny, life as serious? The prologue illustrating this? The travel for Daigo, his job, the mourners, the ritual and the ceremony, the serious presentation of death and decorum? The discovery that the girl was a man? The family reaction, the argument, the tone, the farcical aspects? Setting up audience expectations?

5.The structure: the present, the flashbacks, the images of Daigo as a child with his parents? These recurring flashbacks? The crisis, the climax, the resolution? The issue of Daigo’s relationship with his father and the ceremonial way of completing this?

6.Daigo, his age, experience, love of the cello, playing in the orchestra, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, his paying for the cello, the shock of the orchestra being disbanded? Telling his wife? His love for her? Her reaction, the cooking, the octopus, throwing it into the river, its death? The later images of salmon swimming upstream to their home? His decision to return to his town, the memories, selling his cello? His father urging him to play the cello? The bond with his mother? Leaving her, missing her death and funeral? His need for a job, the advertisement, going to the firm, the secretary and the discussion, the puzzle, the brief interview with the boss? His shock at the job? The reaction? The woman dead for two weeks? His reaction, being sick? His not telling his wife?

7.Japanese treatment of the dead, the reverence for the bodies, yet the public opinion thinking that this was an unclean job? The work, the reputation? His wife’s disdain? His friend urging him not to work at his job? Yet life and death, the traditions, the purpose of the ritual, the culture, respect for the dead, the religious beliefs, the attention to detail, the washing of the body, clothing the body, the garment, the makeup, the special clothes or things associated with the deceased, the reverent placing of the hands, the interment in the coffin, burial and cremation?

8.The range of bodies and people and Daigo’s reaction? The transvestite in the prologue? The old lady long dead? The grandmother and the joy of her children, the man angry at his dead wife and their being late? The lady managing the baths? His father and the final ceremony? The final credits and the opportunity to see Daigo doing the whole process?

9.Daigo and his life, his work, his relationship with the boss, the boss’s attitudes? His sharing with the boss, learning on the job, learning respect? The decaying body and the smell, going to the baths, meeting the owner, her memories of him, her son wanting to sell the baths, his wife and child, Daigo playing with the child? The old man and his presence, playing the game with the owner? His bond with her? Daigo seeing him on the bridge, the discussion about the salmon? Taking his wife to the baths? The subplot of the son as the civil servant and wanting to sell, his mother’s refusal?

10.Daigo playing the cello, his memories, playing as a child, his rediscovering his cello, the stone hidden there and his opening it, the memories? His playing for his wife, her delight? His sitting on the side of the road, the emotion in the playing? Playing for the secretary and the boss?

11.Daigo’s wife, love, not questioning him, going to the town? In the house, cooking? Her horror at learning his job? The reaction, threatening him, leaving? Yet her love, sharing? Daigo and his need for her – especially after the first experience with the body, lovemaking? Her pregnancy? Her return, the pregnancy, her demands? Her respect for the old lady, seeing Daigo and his reverence towards the woman, changing her ideas, standing by him? The news about his father’s death, the whereabouts, her urging Daigo to go? Sharing the experience of his caring for his father?

12.The secretary and her story, Daigo’s anger in hearing it, abandoning her children? Yet her urging him to go to his father? The sadness of her story, her personality, the boss and his support of her?

13.Daigo’s father, the message, his anger, his being persuaded to go? His memories of his father, the records, his wife’s comment that his mother must have loved her husband and not thrown out his records? The town, people talking about his father? The undertakers and their lack of reverence? His performing the ritual, the closure?

14.The theme of stones, searching for the stones as a child, his father and the stone, the stone in the cello, going to the river, the stone for his wife?

15.A film of Japanese culture, yet a film of human nature, human sensitivity with a universal appeal?