I saw an incredible film last night
11 June 2010
Departures. It's a 2008 Japanese film starring Masahiro Motoki as Daigo Kobayashi, a concert cellist left high and dry when the owner of his orchestra loses so much money that he has to pull the plug on the whole affair.
This is particularly bad news for Kobayashi san because he's just bought a new cello for a cool 18 million yen, which, so good old XE Converter tells me, is £134,613.06.
Lumbered with this debt he has no choice but to up sticks with his young wife and go back to his childhood home, that was bequeathed to him by his mother.
They go back and Kobayashi starts looking for work. Answering an ad in the local paper he goes for an interview in the "departures" industry, which is, it transpires, the funeral industry. His job is to encoffin the deceased, which is the process of making up, dressing and putting the body in its coffin.
Initially scorned by the locals for doing a job that nobody else wants, and for being in constant contact with the dead, the film charts Kobayashi's journey through these conflicts. As his master teaches him the art of encoffinment he comes to understand the importance of the job, and now all he needs to do is convince everyone else, including his disenchanted wife...
I wouldn't usually write a blog about films, but this one was truly great and if you get a chance you should definitely check it out. It encompasses so many things: love, the ephemeral nature of life, death, art, craft, dignity, absent parents, the hereafter. I found it just so, so moving. And this is all balanced out with laugh out loud funny moments.
The acting is first class as well. Motoki as Kobayashi is funny and kind and innocent; his teacher, Mr Sasaki, is dry and calm and wise; in fact all the performances of the larger than life characters are superb.
But beware - you might need a hanky for this film. Heart-warming, life-affirming, richly-told, double-barrelled-superlative-deserving, and filled with a gentle humour, this really is unmissable.
1 comment
Written by Delving Eye on 18 December 2010 at 22:06:00
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who'd seen this film. If you're interested, here's my Yahoo review: http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/dfrv?mid=1810038113&uid=YRlAKf.lcM7ezNMF7t.ZiSKkODbijK&s=&i=5&spl=1