An exquisite film

Rating: 9/10 (19 July 2015)

An American client, knowledgeable about Eastern ways, highly recommended Departures to me. It was nominated for an academy award for best foreign film, he told me. I read about the plot on IMDb, saw that it was about a Japanese man named Daigo who prepares dead people for funerals, and was immediately turned off by the idea seeing it. I told this to the client, and he said "The East doesn't think of death that way. No preconceptions allowed! It is not a death movie, it is a life movie".
Having been gently but firmly rebuked, I returned to IMDb and read several positive reviews of the film. This time my impression was much different. I came to view this film with respect. It no longer appeared to be simply a "morbid" film, but a thoughtfully-made one, and representative of Japanese filmmakers' reputation for sensitive storytelling. With renewed interest in seeing the film, I told my client that I'd see it when I have time. I started watching it three weeks later.
Not only did I watch it, but I managed to persuade my wife to watch it with me. Initially, she was repulsed by the sight of dead people being prepared for burial or cremation, and refused to continue watching the film. However, she overcame her disgust when I starting watching the film myself from where we had left off, a week later, and when she heard the beautiful music of the film's soundtrack. We saw the rest of the film together, and we both liked it.
My wife was charmed by the sight of Daigo playing the cello, especially when he played on the hilltop. He was an orchestra of one.
Daigo had a job playing the cello in an orchestra, but was forced to give that up when the orchestra was disbanded. He answered a help wanted ad, thinking he was applying for a job as a travel agent. Instead, he was hired to be a ritual mortician, a job which he at first detested and which made him sick. The pay was very good, though.
The artistry of this film must be seen to be believed. Here are a few examples: there's a scene in which Daigo applies lipstick to the lips of a deceased wife and mother during the "en-coffining" ceremony: her husband and daughter express their heartfelt thanks to him after the ceremony for making their beloved wife and mother, respectively, appear more beautiful even in death. Another example: an old man prepares to cremate a deceased bathhouse owner, an important member of the community, while explaining his role as a gatekeeper to the next world to Daigo's former orchestral comrade. The comrade had reproached Daigo in front of the comrade's wife and child for doing such undignified work, and can now see the value of Daigo's work. The final scene is the final example and the ultimate climax. It was in that last scene that I most saw the resemblance to one of the best Ozu films a Dutch reviewer on IMDb mentioned in his review, even though I haven't seen an Ozu film. The scene is poignant; it is beyond astonishing, it is beyond extraordinary. It is magical.
Throughout the film, the music is as moving as it is beautiful. It serves to reinforce the film's message that en-coffining is an honorable profession, one that helps the loved ones of those left behind find solace, even joy, despite the loss of their dearly departed family members and friends.
The acting is superb in the film. I could feel the sincerity of the characters as I watched them go about their lives. Daigo, Mika, and Sasaki, especially, conveyed genuine feeling with their expressions and actions. As the actor who plays Daigo, Masahiro Motoki, had an enormous interest in the subject of the film – in fact he wrote a book on the relationship between life and death – this added considerably to the credibility of the film and his role in it.
What is most significant to me about this film is the way it shows how one's choice of profession affects one's life in important ways. This film is about death, but it's even more about life and the effect that death has upon the lives of those who make it a profession, as well as those they care about. Moreover, there is beauty, even in death.
Japanese culture is depicted in a realistic way. As an example, when my stepdaughter, who spent time in Japan, came to visit us, I told her about Departures, and she told us about the bathhouses in Japan. The bathhouse in Departures matched her description. The Japanese values of respect for one's elders, tradition and nature are much in evidence in this movie. The film accurately portrays the stigma involving death in Japan: that death in Japanese culture is thought to be a source of impurity and that those who work closely with the deceased, such as morticians, are considered unclean. It is this stigma which Daigo strives to overcome in his new career.
I urge you to see Departures. Although it doesn't explore the religious side of the Japanese funeral ritual, it is nevertheless an artistic and reasonably authentic portrayal of its place in Japanese society. It's very likely that you will enjoy Departures, or at least some aspect of it, and that you'll find much meaning in it. The care with which this film was made will be become apparent to you as you watch it. It is truly an antidote for the crassness of the modern Hollywood film tradition, with its puffery and special effects mania. It is an antidote, for that matter, for the materialistic culture that we cling to so desperately in the United States.