A gentle, Oscar-winning film from Japan, a recently unemployed cellist returns with his wife to the family home where, surrounded by memory, he takes a job preparing the dead for funerals.
With the privately-owned orchestra suddenly dissolved, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) finds himself without income and heavily in debt. With his wife Mika (Ryôko Hirosue), a decision is made to return to the vacant family home, left to him on the death of his mother two years earlier. Looking for work, in responding to a newspaper advert, Daigo discovers that ‘departures’ is not in the travel industry but for a person who performs the heavily ritualised rites prior to bodies being placed in the coffin.
Tender and contemplative, directed by Yôjirô Takita, Departures sees the social shame of such a job (Daigo initially keeps it hidden from Mika) replaced by a sense of pride and purpose with its respectful and Zen-like quality of ritual and tradition.
Winner or the 2009 Oscar for best foreign language film.
Rating: 66%
Director: Yôjirô Takita (When the Last Sword is Drawn, Himitsu)
Writer: Kundô Koyama (Yudo: the Way of the Bath, Honeybee Hutch)
Main cast: Masahiro Motoki (The Emperor in August, Sumo Do Sumo Don’t), Ryôko Hirosue (Himitsu, Hana’s Miso Soup), Tsutomu Yamazaki (Kagemusha, Go)
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