Life after Death

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2010)

Last year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film came as quite a surprise to many people. The Japanese drama Departures upset the French comedy The Class, and the Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir. I have since viewed those three but not the last two Revanche (Austria) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany). Until I see the remaining two, I won't decide whether I agree with the Academy or not. Each of the three films I've seen is an in-depth look at one cultural facet of their countries of origin. The Class is about the integration of mostly African immigrants into French society and Waltz with Bashir is an Israeli self-aware recollection of the 1982 Lebanon War. Departures has no chronological label and concerns the eternal event of death.
Too many "serious" films sugarcoat death into something overly dramatic, which renders the on screen image emotionally empty. A lot of time is devoted to watching someone pass. The act of dying is not what should be important. After all, the person responsible is unaffected by anything after the act has happened. Life must continue after someone dies. Departures is a film about this phenomenon from a Japanese perspective. It treats its subject matter with a carefully reserved respect that beguiles the pithiness so often ascribed to it.
At hand is Daigo, a young cellist from Tokyo, who relocates to his childhood home in the countryside following the dissolution of his orchestra. He and his wife move into a home inherited from his mother, and he begins looking for a new job. As fate dictates, he mistakes an ad for "departures" as a position in a travel agency, when it is really for a funeral home. He takes the job, much to the dismay of everyone outside of the business, including his wife. One family he works with openly acknowledges his new occupation is a social abomination. Daigo persists and does not quit even when his wife temporarily leaves him out of shame.
In his job as funeral director-to-be, Daigo travels to funerals to clean and dress bodies for cremation. As I assume is customary, the immediate family of the deceased watches in reverence. He must take great care in tending the bodies as nothing should be visible other than the hands and face. Director Yōjirō Takita purposely places the camera near Daigo's body to invite the audience to participate in the process. Whenever Daigo is dressing someone, only his hands are visible. Mr. Takita wants us to be aware of what is happening in detail. Families are then shown at slight distance. Some cry or become enraged, but nothing derails Daigo in his efforts as a human agent of the Spiritual Realm.
Daigo is successful in his apprenticeship and the community assumes that his job is permanent. His wife returns as a metaphorical allusion to the effect this film has on the viewer. She loves Daigo more than she fears rejection from others and begins to function normally, and her behavior is less erratic. His local fame brings him to perform for many of the close friends from his childhood. Yet he does not stoically approach these hurdles. He cries and finds solace in his music. Mr. Takita includes a montage of Daigo playing his cello outside in an overtly well-lit space and lets Daigo cry to show his character is a real person. It's both humbling and unforgettable.