I laughed, I cried, I loved it

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2012)

When the orchestra cellist Daigo Kobayashi is in is disbanded he moves back to his home town of Sakata to live in the house he inherited off his late mother. Needed a job he sees a rather cryptic advertisement in the paper offering a job dealing with 'departures' he assumes it must be something to do with travel but it was a misprint; he will be dealing with the departed! He hasn't even seen a dead body before but gets the job; he will be the assistant to a man who performs the ritual preparation of the dead body. Unlike in the west where the body is prepared behind closed doors this preparation that involves cleaning and dressing the deceased is done in front of the family. He feels unable to tell his wife that he is working with the dead and when she finds out she has difficulty handling it and returns to Tokyo hoping he will resign. He realises that he is doing an important job though and continues. I won't spoil the rest of the film but will say that by the end I was smiling and crying at the same time.
I recorded this film when it was on television and finally got around to watching it; given the subject matter I though I'd have to be in the right mood to watch it. I was surprised just how much I enjoyed it; the rituals may have been alien to me but it was handled in a way that both taught me something new about Japanese culture and provided a very moving story. Daigo and his boss Ikuei Sasaki show the utmost respect for the deceased and their relatives unlike one pair of undertakers we see later in the film. Masahiro Motoki and Tsutomu Yamazaki did great jobs bringing real humanity to the roles of Daigo and Ikuei, Ryôko Hirosue also put in a fine performance as Daigo's wife Mika. Don't be put off by the subject matter; give this film a go if you want something gentle but genuinely moving.