Many people have never seen a dead body. Exclude those who have only seen an embalmed corpse in a funereal setting and it’s an overwhelming majority. When we contemplate death, it’s usually in the dogmatic, spiritual or philosophical sense. Far less often, especially for those who do not encounter terminal illness, do we consider death in the practical sense—specifically, who will handle our corpses immediately after we pass. Various cultures approach this necessity from different angles, everything from handling dead bodies as grim but beneficial vocation to such a necessary service rendering the handler untouchable.
Yōjirō Takita’s 2008 film Departures may add levity to the profession of “casketing,” but those tasked with retrieving and ceremonially washing and preparing bodies for eventual cremation in Japan are still not so subtly seen as undesirable or even explicitly unclean. Aspiring cellist Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) stumbles into such a job when he answers a classified ad for work in the field of “departures,” assuming it would be something akin to a travel agent gig. The orchestra for which he’s worked has just dissolved, tanking his investment in a fancy cello he recently purchased for the cost of a small mortgage. Unable to afford Tokyo, he moves with his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), back to the childhood home that his late mother left him. When he’s hired on the spot by the eccentric Ikuei (Tsutomu Yamazaki), who eventually explains the ad was a misprint for “departed,” Daigo must hide his socially dishonorable new job from Mika, and basically everyone else he knows.
Somewhat oddly, Departures opens nonlinearly with Daigo already performing perhaps his first ceremonial preparation of a body, before the film then shifts backwards in chronology to the aforementioned circumstances that led him to this job. Notably for its time, however, this scene finds Daigo—who is tasked with respectfully washing and dressing a young woman suicide victim in front of her mourning family—making his way halfway down the enrobed body before discovering that the woman has “a thing.” The scene is significant, especially in 2008, given that Japan has lagged behind the Western world somewhat in its acceptance of transgender rights. The fact that boss Ikuei, when informed, then asks whether the family would like the makeup to be masculine or feminine (and the family chooses feminine) speaks to how this vocation isn’t about collecting corpses so much as it is honoring the deceased.
Departures uses humor to balance out some of its more morbid subject matter. Daigo, who had never seen a dead body, first encounters one in less-than-ideal circumstances, as he and Ikuei gather the decaying remains of a woman who died two weeks prior. Considering we don’t see much of the gruesome scene given the film’s PG-13 rating, Motoki hams it up in his over-the-top reaction, as Daigo gags and struggles to hold back the vomit that will eventually flow when, back at home, Mika soon after pulls out raw slabs of a butchered chicken. Throughout the film, Takita juxtaposes the nauseating aspects of dead humans with the fact many of us eat dead animals all the time, a scene involving a still-squirming octopus that had been intended for dinner making an especially memorable impression. Gnawing flesh from bones feels a bit different after dealing with death all day. At least a first; Daigo, Ikuei and coworker Yuriko (Kimiko Yo) gleefully dive into platter of fried chicken when they celebrate Christmas together at the office, with an ashamed Mika having fled back to Tokyo.
Departures does grow a bit maudlin as it goes along, especially as the periodic references to Daigo’s childhood abandonment by his father culminate in the way one might easily predict. There’s also a small side plot involving a former classmate of his (Tetta Sugimoto) disrespecting Daigo’s new profession only to see things differently when Daigo reverently prepares the man’s mother (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), who played a sort of maternal figure to Daigo as well. Add in an element involving the the beginning of life contrasted with the end of life, and you’ve got some Oscar bait on your hands—and indeed, Departures won Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards. A far more moving and poignant meditation on death and its ripple effects on the living can be found in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s acclaimed Drive My Car. But when it comes to touchingly portraying the simple act of physically honoring the recently dead, few films transcend Departures.
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