Death spares no land, and the living respond differently from culture to culture. In Departures, the Japanese way of mourning is depicted through a protagonist, Daigo, who stumbles into his country’s counterpart of America’s funeral industry.
Before the film opened anywhere in the United States, Departures earned a footnote in the annals of Oscar history by winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (2009), beating the unforgettable Israeli animated feature Waltz with Bashir. How Departures seized the gold statue is a topic for investigative journalism. It’s a good movie, but Best Foreign Language Film? Perhaps the universality of death and grieving carried the night. Departures is out now on DVD.
A fascinating look at a side of Japan little seen by outsiders, Departures is mordantly funny and modestly moving. Bothersome is a touch of schmaltz, which results less from the screenplay than a sugarcoated musical score that desperately seeks to infuse the already emotional material with unnecessary emotionalism. Also, Departures wears out its welcome toward the two-hour mark. It could easily have shed half an hour of running time.
That said, the unaffected acting of the cast keeps the story grounded. After his symphony orchestra is disbanded for poor ticket sales, the cellist Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) and his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) return to his hometown in provincial Japan. With his mother dead and his father missing after deserting them 30 years before, it’s a bittersweet homecoming. Needing work, Daigo answers a vaguely worded want ad, expecting to apply at a travel agency.
Instead, the “departures” of the ad refer to the dead and their exit from this world. Daigo finds himself tending to their bodies in ceremonies derived from Japan’s Shinto heritage. Along with offering rice and incense, he must carefully wash the corpse and apply makeup before the assembled relatives. At one time the family of the dead was responsible for tending to these funeral customs, but as in the West, professionals have assumed the role. And, apparently, a stigma is attached to the handlers of the dead. Daigo tries to hide his occupation from his wife and friends.
Reconciliation is the overriding theme of Departures. As it muses on the chasms separating the living from the dead, and the living from each other, the screenplay finds beautiful ways to suggest that bridges can be built through compassion.
