Departures movie review & film summary (2009)

I showed Yojiro Takita's film at Ebertfest 2010, and it had as great an impact as any film in the festival's history. At the end the audience rose as one person. Many standing ovations are perfunctory. This one was long, loud and passionate. That alone doesn't have anything to do with making a film great, and 2011 may seem too soon to include a 2009 film in this collection of Great Movies. I'm including it because having seen in three times I am convinced that "Departures" will hold its power and appeal.

The Japanese cinema reserves a special place for death. In films like Kurosawa's "Ikiru," Ozu's "Tokyo Story," Itami's "Ososhiki" ("The Funeral") and Kore Eda's "Maborosi" and "After Life," it is handled in terms of ongoing life. There is mourning, but not hopeless grief. The mourning is channeled into ritual which provides comfort. There is no great focus on an afterlife. Attention centers on the survivors and on the meaning of the life that has just ended. Watching "Departures" again most recently, I was reminded of these words spoken in Errol Morris's "Gates of Heaven:" Life is for the living and not for the dead so much.

The hero of "Departures" is Daigo (Masahiro Motoki), an impulsive young man, likable, easy to read. His wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) loves him and believes in him. When disaster strikes, she's quick to agree they must return to the small town where he was born and move into his childhood home, which was left to him after his mother's death not long ago. He sells the expensive cello and they make the trip. This is defeat for him: Unemployed, owning not even an instrument, back where he began.

Looking into the employment ads, he finds a promising offer at what sounds like a travel agency. Daigo applies at a quiet little office managed by an assistant (Yo Kimiko), and soon the owner, Mr. Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), appears. The interview is brief. He gets the job and a cash advance. He discovers the agency handles travel, all right -- to the next world. It is an "encoffinment," or undertaking, business.

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