Point College

Title: Departures

Assignment No.: 4

Date: 02/03/2015

Name: Lee Sweet Wan

Course: Introduction to World Cinema

02/03/2015

Monday

Lee Sweet Wan

DEPARTURES (2008)

Departures is a Japanese drama film which released in 2008 and it is directed by Yojiro Takita and starring Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely based on Coffinman, a memoir by Shinmon Aoki. The film follows by a young man, Daigo Kobayashi who is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and now he can’t find a job because he think that he’s not good enough to find another chair. He decides to move back to his childhood house which is in shadow of Mt. Fuji. His wife, Mika agreed with it and wish to live a happiness life there. He is now back to his hometown with his wife, his mother is dead; his father left them with another woman when Daigo was 6 year old kids. He then found a job on a newspaper ads, he thinks that it is a job of travel agency yet he found out that it’s to prepare dead bodies for burial on a ceremony in front of the family and friends known as coffinment. The boss, Sasaki is quietly forceful so he takes the job and he keeps it as a secret form Mika because he strongly knows that Mika and others won’t agree with that. At the night, he takes out a cello that he used to play when he was a kid and he found a big stone which covered by the score. It is given by his father as a “letter-stone”, a stone which is said to convey the feelings through the texture on it, and you can

give it to whoever you want them to feels what you are feeling right now. He got his first assignment on the next day which is to assist the encoffinment with a woman who died at home and discovered by two weeks later. Of course he feels not comfortable with it and he even vomit. Over time, he get used to it and found the gratitude of the families of the deceased when he experienced more. Things go to the way as he predicted, he is subjected to prejudice by the peoples around him included his former classmate and his wife. They think that the job he been working on is unclean because he touched the dead body. His wife then leaves him and back to Tokyo. But still, he refuses to quit and keeps working with the job.

He didn’t gone too upset when his wife not be with him. He just keep doing his work and sometimes playing his cello. After a few months later, his wife returns and tell him that she is pregnant. He feels so excited at first but his wife hasn’t change her mind and keep asking him to quit the job. His phone ring at that moment and he been telling that the owner of the bathhouse who both of them know. Therefore Daigo is the one who prepare the body. He earns the respect from all people through the ritual and Mika stop asking him to change his job.

Later, Mika receives a letter that saying Daigo’s father was deceased. They then go to another village to see the body. Daigo got an argument with the people who is preparing his father body with a modern way. He thinks that a traditional way is way more respect compare to the modern way. In addition, he wants to prepare the body as he is his father. He finds a “letter-stone” that he gave his father many years before, held tight in his father’s hand. He slightly touch the face of his father and helps him to slave the hair on his face and he called him as father one last time.

Yojiro Takita gets the idea for Departures after having seen a funeral ceremony along the Ganges when traveling in India. He felt that the story would adapt well to film and it did. It won the Academy Prize for Picture of The Year and become the year’s highest-grossing domestic film.

In this film, the death and life are strongly showing to us. The death is showing through the protagonists’ job which help to clean up and make up for the death body before the burial. As the protagonist, he didn’t care what others say about him but just live his own life. He just stick with his own mind and own heart. He

knows that everyone dies eventually and it’s normal. But when there is a death, there will be a life too.

Some of the scene in the film are showing when the protagonist is watching on two salmons which in the river swimming hardly against the direction of the river flows. In the meantime, there is a dead fish flowing down besides the two salmons. The two salmons keep going against the river flows even when they know that they will be dead perhaps. Same goes to the protagonist himself, he don’t afraid or being annoyed by others but just keep walking on his own journey. It tells me that no matter how hard is the situation and what end will it leads to but just fight for what we want and what makes us feel happiness.

I cried badly when watching the movie. I can’t clearly tell what it is but it’s just making me feels heartbroken by seeing someone dead. Most of the movie scenes keep showing the protagonist prepare the dead body without any background music. But still, it makes me feel sad. It might be looks bored without any background music but I think this is what called a visual impact. I learned how the Japanese prepare the body before the burial ceremony in a traditional ways which shows full of respect to the dead body. Besides, the protagonist himself plays cello. There are some scenes that showing him playing the cello. I think the sound that cello makes is the saddest sound among all of the musical instruments. This is because I found that the sound of cello is very close to a human voice and this makes a sympathetic response. Therefore it tears me off whenever I heard the protagonist playing the cello. In addition, one of the thing in the movie that impress me a lot is the “letter-stone”. It is like a subject that makes the film connected from the beginning until the end. ”Letter-stone” was given to the protagonist by his father when he was a kid. Later, his father leaves him so the “letter-stone” and of course the memories are the things that his father left for him. Besides, he didn’t realize that his father still keep the “letter-stone” with him until he found the stone on his father’s dead body. All of the buried memories comes out from his mind. I found this part really heartbroken until I can’t control my tears. We just live our life once so try to avoid doing something that will make us feel regret on it.