RECOMMENDATION of the month

This month we have chosen the Japanese film “Departures” where a newly unemployed cellist takes a job preparing the dead for funerals.

Departure (Okuribito)

Title: Departures

Year: 2008

Country: Japan

Director: Yojiro Takita

Screen writer: Koyama Kundo

Music: Joe Hisaishi

Photography: Takeshi Hamada

Cast: Masahiro Motoki, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Ryoko Hirosue, Kazuo Yoshiyuki, Kimiko Yo, Takahashi Sasano, Tôru Minegishi, Yukiko Yachibana, Tatsuo Yamada

Synopsis

 
Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and now finds himself without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled “Departures” thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a “Nokanshi” or “encoffineer,” a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of “Nokanshi,” acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living.

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