blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit

blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit
By Alison Hobbs, blending a mixture of thoughts and experiences for friends, relations and kindred spirits.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Working with the Departed

Yesterday I watched the Japanese film, Okuribito (おくりびと), which in English is entitled Departures (2008)—note the different trailers aimed at different audiences! It was one of the best films I have ever seen, a meditation on the theme of loss, accompanied by the 'cello. During the two hours it took, I learned more about the Japanese than I ever have and must have gone through every possible emotion.

It is about a sympathetic young man, a musician obliged by circumstances to work as an undertaker. He takes his job very seriously indeed. The more imaginative you are the more it will turn your stomach. The nauseating images are actually hidden from the camera; all the same I nearly made a dash from my seat at one point. Other scenes are rivetingly beautiful, or comical, even, or thoughtfully symbolic. The story is not grim throughout, not at all.

The film forces you to think about death and, by implication, about the preciousness of life. Incidentally, it's a sort of documentary about Japanese funeral customs, incorporating footage of Japanese scenery and interiors fascinating to a non-Asian viewer such as me. Mostly however it is the close-ups of the faces (dead and alive!) that will stick in the memory. The actress who plays the main female part does not have a conventionally pretty face—she has uneven teeth—but the tenderness of her facial expressions more than compensates for that.

The Japanese are such self-controlled people, whose upbringing generally encourages them to hide their feelings, but this is the very quality that makes for such good acting and such intensity. The same applies to the English.

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