Departures (film)

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This article is about a Japanese movie. For the television series, see Departures (TV series).
Departures (おくりびと)

Japanese-language film poster
Directed by Yōjirō Takita
Written by Kundo Koyama
Starring Masahiro Motoki
Ryoko Hirosue
Tsutomu Yamazaki
Kimiko Yo
Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Takashi Sasano
Music by Joe Hisaishi
Cinematography Takeshi Hamada
Editing by Akimasa Kawashima
Distributed by Shochiku
Release date(s) September 13, 2008 (2008-09-13)
Running time 131 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Departures (おくりびと Okuribito?) is a 2008 Japanese film by Yōjirō Takita. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Oscars in 2009. In Japan, it has earned $61,010,217, as of April 12, 2009.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist in an orchestra in Tokyo, loses his job because of the dissolution of the orchestra. After quitting as a professional cellist he decides to sell his cello (which had cost him 18 million yen), and to move back to his old hometown, Sakata, Yamagata, with his wife (with whom he had chosen not to discuss the cost of his instrument). She passively but sweetly accepts both his deception and his wish to sell the cello and move.

Once back in his old hometown, Daigo finds a classified advertisement for "Assisting departures" for an "NK Agency." He goes to the job interview, still uncertain of the job's nature but desperate for a job. The word "departures" in the ad has him thinking that perhaps it is for a job at a travel agency. Instead, after being unceremoniously hired on the spot after only one question ("Will you work hard?") and being handed a large sum of money in an "advance," he discovers that NK is an abbreviation for "encoffinment" (納棺 nōkan?) and that the job involves assisting the "departed" by ceremonially preparing the dead in front of mourners before their bodies are placed in a coffin. The salary is 500,000 yen per month,($5600 at the approximate July 2010 exchange rate of 90 yen to $1 (US)), a large sum of money to Daigo. With the cash in hand, and being assured by his new boss that this is "fate," Daigo more fails to decline rather than accepts the job offer. He comes home to his wife with an expensive bag of meat as a celebration, but he finds himself unable to admit the type of work he will be doing; he dissembles, saying that he is to be employed performing some sort of ceremony, which his wife guesses might include weddings, but which he avoids further describing.

Daigo has a hard time at his first day of work, being made to act as a corpse in a DVD explaining the procedure of encoffinment. More harrowing still is his first assignment which is, in preparation for the wake, to clean, dress and apply cosmetics to the body of an aged woman who has died alone at home, remaining undiscovered for two weeks. He is beset with nausea at the sight and smell of her collapsed body and further humiliated when strangers on the bus detect an unsavory scent around him. He bathes in a public bath, repeatedly scrubbing himself as if to wash off all remnants of death. This scene introduces a character who plays an important role later in the film, the owner of the bathhouse.

Daigo completes a number of assignments and experiences the gratitude of those left behind, while enjoying playing his old cello during his time off. He has started to feel a sense of fulfillment in his work when his wife, Mika, (Ryoko Hirosue) finds the training DVD and begs him to give up such a "disgusting profession." Daigo refuses to quit, so his wife leaves him. Even his old friend, Yamashita (Tetta Sugimoto), learning of his work, shuns him and tells him to get "a proper job."

After a few months, Daigo's wife returns, announcing that she is pregnant. She seems to assume that now he will "straighten himself out" and get a different job. The look on his face tells her that he has no such feeling. In the middle of this crisis, the telephone rings with the news that Daigo's friend's (Yamashita's) mother, Tsuyako (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), who ran the local bathhouse, has died. In front of Yamashita, his family and Mika, Daigo prepares Tsuyako's body for her cremation. The beauty of the ritual earns the respect and understanding of all present. During cremation, Tsuyako's friend who worked as cremador, mentions that the time working there made him think that death is not the "end" but the "gate to a next stage", as a "gatekeeper" he use to say "have a nice trip, see you later".

Soon after, a notice is delivered to Daigo's house that his estranged father has died. He initially refuses to go see his dead father, but Daigo's coworker convinces him to go. His boss invites him to take one of the display coffins. When Daigo sees the body of his father, he notices that he has left only one cardboard box of belongings, despite the fact that he lived for over 70 years, and wonders aloud what it was all for.

Funeral workers come to get Daigo's father's corpse, but he watches in horror as they handle the body in a cavalier and unceremonious way. He stops them, and his wife explains to the startled workers, with a new pride, that her husband is a professional encoffiner. As he personally handles the cleansing and dressing of the body, Daigo finds a "stone-letter" he had given to his father when he was little, grasped in his father's hands. As he gazes at this stone, the memory of that day floods back, and the face of his father, which in previous flashbacks to this moment had been blurred, jumps into focus, and at last he remembers and recognizes his father. As he continues the ceremony, both he and Mika quietly cry. Daigo turns and presses the stone-letter to Mika's pregnant belly.

During the end credits, Daigo is shown preparing Tsuyako's body in greater detail.

[edit] Soundtrack

Okuribito
Soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi
Released 10 September, 2008
Label Universal Music (UMCK-1268)

All compositions by Joe Hisaishi.

  1. "Shine of Snow I" 1:12
  2. "Nohkan" 3:10
  3. "Kaisan" 0:53
  4. "Good-Bye Cello" 2:16
  5. "New Road" 1:15
  6. "Model" 0:47
  7. "First Contact" 1:51
  8. "Washing" 0:34
  9. "Kizuna I" 1:57
  10. "Beautiful Dead I" 3:12
  11. "Okuribito (On Record)" 1:51
  12. "Gui-Dance" 2:26
  13. "Shine of Snow II" 2:25
  14. "Ave Maria (Okuribito)" 5:29
  15. "Kizuna II" 2:04
  16. "Beautiful Dead II" 2:36
  17. "Father" 1:40
  18. "Okuribito (Memory)" 4:10
  19. "Okuribito (Ending)" 4:59

[edit] Production

Loosely based on Aoki Shinmon's autobiographical book Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician (納棺夫日記 Nōkanfu Nikki?)[2], the film was ten years in the making. Motoki studied the art of 'encoffinment' at first hand from a mortician, and how to play a cello for the earlier parts of the movie.[3] The director attended funeral ceremonies in order to understand the feelings of bereaved families.[3] While death is the subject of great ceremony, as portrayed in this movie, it is also a strongly taboo subject in Japan, so the director was worried about the film's reception and did not anticipate commercial success.[3]

[edit] Cast

[edit] Response

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he had enjoyed watching the film, which had been recommended to him by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.[4] It currently holds an 80% on RottenTomatoes.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/japan/?yr=2009&wk=15&p=.htm
  2. ^ http://www.screendaily.com/departures-tops-japanese-box-office-following-oscar-win/4043460.article
  3. ^ a b c Bob Tourtellotte and Isabel Reynolds (2009-02-23). "UPDATE 3-Mortician tale "Departures" surprises with Oscar". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUST31471620090223?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 
  4. ^ http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jewg7G_kdI0xe5zHVEydNYmGLYrA Japan, China launch 'cartoon' diplomacy

[edit] External links

Look up encoffinment in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Awards
Preceded by
The Counterfeiters
 Austria		 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
2008		 Succeeded by
The Secret in Their Eyes
 Argentina
v • d • e
Films directed by Yōjirō Takita

Comic Magazine (1986) · Time Adventure: Zeccho 5-byo Mae (1986) · Itoshino Half Moon (1987) · Kimurake no Hitobito (1988) · Nemuranai Machi: Shinjuku Same (1993) · Himitsu (1999) · Onmyoji (2001) · When the Last Sword Is Drawn (2003) · Ashurajō no Hitomi (2005) · The Battery (2007) · Departures (2008)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departures_(film)"
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