(11) Departures

This movie reflection is about a Japanese film named “Departure” directed by Yojiro Takita in 2008. In this movie mainly portrayed the death, funeral culture with rituals of Japan. Death is a latest process and might be the most fearful experience in human’s life span. For that reason, every people show different coping patterns when they feel death is very near whether adapted or maladapted. 

 In this film, the plot follows of Kobayashi, the main actor who was a talented cellist in Tokyo. However when his orchestra is abruptly disbanded suddenly, he finds himself without a source of steady income. In order to provide for himself and his wife, Kobayashi accepts a job as an undertaker in his hometown. Surely, he didn’t want to do the job at the beginning, but salary was okay so he decides to do it secretly with his wife doesn’t know about it. After that, this film describes Kobayashi how he has been learning the life through people’s death despite opposition and prejudice from surrounding people.

 

 This film shows how people treat a sense of farewell ritual differently then make us to more concentrate on “relationship” with living people. Anyway, since then, Kobayashi accompany with his boss and attend different types of death. One day, he saw the boss who respect for the corpse stage in departures with mourning mind through wipe the dead body clean, make dressed well, and even shave/makeup like a live person before lied in the coffin. And from that day, he became a mortician.

Based on Self-psychology, people have the different “loss” attitude to cope with grief and depression. If we lose a loved one to death, at which point we shall separate us from this dead man/women. Otherwise, we identified us seriously with the dead person so we will be hindered by our own development. When we send a symbolic killing the presence of a dead loved in our inner world, we will be able to carry our own lives from such a profound loss to transcend.

 

As a cellist (strongly preferred as a job) and a mortician (not preferred), both have similar traits. Through when Kobayashi was playing a cello and undertaking corpses he seemed to be different types of artist or clergyman who faced end of life of a person because, both job touches human’s deep heart and gives peace and rest. As a musician and as a mortician, Kobayashi is the best in both jobs either.

 

 

The film shows constantly intersecting life and death which includes paradoxical situations. For example, alive people vs. dead people, alive octopus in the morning vs. dead octopus before send to the sea in the evening, a cellist vs. an undertaker, grief funeral vs. happy funeral, salmon return to the river of their birth for lay eggs vs. floating salmon which dead already after lay eggs, flying birds vs. the head of dead chicken was caught in the morning, and include he seems to hate his father because he left Kobayashi when he was young vs. he has missed his father, so that he overcome his anger and forgive his father through the procedure of undertaking his father’s dead body.

In this film, the director tried to illustrated Japan’s overall appearances and cultures naturally without exaggeration, such as housing style, funeral ritual, food, language, beautiful nature  with different seasons, street, public bath place and etc. In short word, this film is like a commercial movie about Japan which also involve meaningful story.

I realized that the film praise of death itself via human’s death and tried to express the death with meaningfully and even beautifully rather than afraid or fearful. Death can be a new departure of our soul and life. It gave me to change on the perception about death and negative thinking.