Far from a Departure in form from in a recent canon of decent Japanese films, this film's exploring of a man in a niche career makes for impressive viewing.

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2011)

For a film so wholly indebted to death and the deceased, beginning with its title that alludes to such things and carrying on in the nature of what it is the lead eventually comes to do, it is quite remarkable just how celebratory of living Yôjirô Takita's Departures really is; a piece using these means and specific content more inclined towards those whom have passed as items for breathing life into a person's existence. Departures will eventually tell the story of a Japanese man seemingly approaching his middle age, as well as the apparent crisis on its way as a result of getting there, whom comes to find something totally out of the ordinary, and in a totally unexpected manner, which goes on to shift thinking's and attitudes for both himself and those around him, in what is a quite often fabulously played drama displaying a good eye for black comedy and rich character study.
Told in flashback, something I began as thinking was quite needless but brings certain resonances that creep up on you, the film documents a certain Daigo (Motoki); a Japanese man, of whom we sense is on the cusp of something big in his life, what with his partner; passions and skills he has in certain fields, but cannot quite pin down what. He is initially a cellist and a good cellist, but a redundant cellist after the principal of his orchestra announces, following a playing to a near empty auditorium we barely notice out of the fact the principal's pained expression dominates the screen, that the disbanding of the group is imminent. The following few sequences do very little to incline us into siding with Daigo; he slumps down at home in his charming Tokyo apartment and ponders, with his sizable instrument, just what it is he's going to do. His wife is the prim; softly spoken and rather sweet Mika (Hirosue), and she brings octopus back for dinner and tells him to cheer up 'cause he's still got her and her job brings in money and this nice apartment is still here and we all get to have exquisite seafood for dinner.
Decisions are made and the pair of them move to Daigo's hometown of childhood a fair distance away, in the more remoter regions of Japan; once there, the gunning for a job whose interview and house of operations is barely distinguishable from any other place of business, bar a couple of rather large caskets propped up against the side of the wall, plays out into the coming into contact with something thoroughly out of the ordinary. This new job is what appears to be a cross contamination between that of an undertaker and a maid; a job without, I don't think, a name in the English language – a job whose role it is to undergo a ritualistic process of smartly preparing a dead body, in-front of their family and loved ones, before placing them in their coffins for later funerals: it is a job that few desire and even fewer, it seems, look upon with anything more than mere scorn.
Early on, we feel this job exists merely to serve a purpose; that being, to pay the debts owed for the cost of his cello, a sum that, once eviscerated, will be able to see Daigo leave his post and start afresh with something else. This isn't necessarily the way, the film going on to document Daigo's exposure to such a career and his gradual coming to enjoy what it is he does in a refreshing fashion. When we first come to observe him in his new work surroundings, his employer Sasaki (Yamazaki) and the company's secretary appear odd or strange, even eccentric and whose socialism we don't wish to share. As expected, Daigo finds himself in the deep end early on, acting as an extra in a 'how-to' DVD giving way to his first call out with Sasaki seeing them deal with a body, whom has remained undiscovered for a fair while, acting as the inception into this chosen career. Daigo heads in, combating the sight of a dead body experienced for the first time as well as the terrible smell creating a putrid and somewhat unpleasant first exposure to things – all of it done and dealt with in a messy and comedic although significant manner.
Running parallel to the audience's own response to the material, in that at the beginning the majority of us feel alienated; perturbed and perhaps a little grossed out, Daigo's coming to enjoy what it is the film is about stands side by side to that of Mika's discovery; staunch rejection and then consequent realisation that the nature of the man's work is actually both rather brave; invigorating to watch and quietly fascinating without necessarily being morbidly so. Daigo's boss and his co-workers appear to become more normalised without ever actually changing their general characteristics, in what is a gleefully subtle addition to proceedings as mindsets change and frameworks play out.
Overlying everything is the fact that Daigo is a man whose prior exposure to death and the nature of grief has been largely negative thus far in his life; if not negative, then largely hollow, in that he missed his father's funeral on account of being oh, so very young and unable to attend for whatever reason, whereas the passing of his grandparents when he was still equally as young came and went without all those wondrous instances that time with grandparents can so often bring whilst a child. The error of Daigo's ways is in the dismissing of such things, the eventual job he acquires seeing him come to work with the deceased and, more important in this sense, those grieving before the understanding of the nature, or procession, of remembering one's dead that imbues this process is played out – the likes of which, with everything else, make for really involving viewing.