Departures

The Academy Award in 2009 for the best foreign film went to ’Departures. This beautiful film, I believe, is suitable for most High School students. When I use this film I will have the student create a Venn (sic) Diagram to compare Japanese and American societies: What they eat, how they dress, transportation, their attitudes towards death, and some sense, perhaps, about how the deceased are treated in both societies. The overarching question is; In what ways are the Japanese and Americans alike and in what ways are they different. My bias is that all people are a lot more similar than different.
The hero Daigo loses his job as a cellist in a symphony orchestra. He decides to move back to his home town/village with his wife. He sells a very expensive cello that he takes a loss on. Perusing the newspaper he sees an ad that announces a job for someone to handle ‘departures’. Little does he know but the ad calls for someone to handle and prepare corpses for cremation. The candidate must learn to prepare the deceased for this process by performing an elaborate ritual of preparing the body with makeup for women, especially, and dressing them for their final journey. Daigo is shocked to discover what the owner (Tsutomu Yamazaki) does; he cleans and prepares bodies and painstakingly makes them up to look their best. The ritual involves undressing them behind artfully manipulated shrouds in front of the witnesses.
The owner is a quiet, kind man, who talks little but exudes genuine respect for the dead. Daigo has some very interesting experiences from handling a body of what appears to be a beautiful young woman turns out of be a young man to handling the body of an elderly woman who has been dead for a long time. (This should not necessarily be a problem because all of my seniors are of the proper age but I would still handle this with delicacy. Considering how one might fall into a trap about gender issues it could go wrong quickly). The tender and delicate ceremony is handled with such care in front of family and, I assume friends that it is, indeed, fascinating.
Students could also draw parallels with how Americans handle this process. While there is not much discussion of the afterlife a gentleman who frequents a bathhouse where Daigo has visited in the past (to bathe himself after handling a long dead elderly woman) happens to be the person in charge of the local crematorium. He was also the close friend of the lady proprietor of the bathhouse whom Daigo has prepared for cremation. The man speaks of being a gatekeeper for people who he is helping to reach the afterlife. The bathhouse proprietor’s son (who shunned Daigo earlier because of his job as an ‘undertaker’) sees what a beautiful and touching ceremony (for want of another term) Daigo performed in preparing his mother for the crematorium he has greater appreciation for Daigo.
There are a couple of scenes that the students could pick up on especially the scene of bridge where he and another man watch salmon swimming upstream returning to their origins to spawn. Of course one would certainly see the symbolism in that although it might not be so obvious to high school kids although they are quite sophisticated. Another scene shows him on a bridge as if to say he is trying to decide his future especially given the negative attitudes toward his line of work in addition to the fact that his wife has left him. She saw a video that his boss had made where Daigo played a corpse. Eventually he and his wife reconcile and she observes him performing the ritual of preparing the body of a deceased person. She is apparently impressed.
Daigo and his mother were abandoned by his father when he was six. He has some really bad feelings about this traumatic experience. Near the end of the movie his wife receives a letter notifying her husband that his missing father has died. Daigo and his wife head for a coastal town where they encounter a couple of undertakers attempting to manhandle his dead father into some kind of makeshift coffin. He intercedes and his wife remarks to the ‘would be’ undertakers that “my husband is a professional”. Daigo then performs the ceremony/ritual of ‘encoffinment’ for his father. While preparing his father’s body he finds a large pebble that he had given his father (curled up in the dead man’s hand) when he was about six years old. In an earlier scene he was shown exchanging pebbles with his father. This is a very surprising and touching scene.
This is a remarkable film that I inadvertently rented originally from Netflix. The students would be able to get a great deal from viewing it even if only for the artistic experience. But, I feel that they will be able to compare Japanese and American societies and see how while different, we have many things in common.
The Academy Award in 2009 for the best foreign film went to ’Departures. This beautiful film, I believe, is suitable for most High School students. When I use this film I will have the student create a Venn (sic) Diagram to compare Japanese and American societies: What they eat, how they dress, transportation, their attitudes towards death, and some sense, perhaps, about how the deceased are treated in both societies. The overarching question is; In what ways are the Japanese and Americans alike and in what ways are they different. My bias is that all people are a lot more similar than different.
The hero Daigo loses his job as a cellist in a symphony orchestra. He decides to move back to his home town/village with his wife. He sells a very expensive cello that he takes a loss on. Perusing the newspaper he sees an ad that announces a job for someone to handle ‘departures’. Little does he know but the ad calls for someone to handle and prepare corpses for cremation. The candidate must learn to prepare the deceased for this process by performing an elaborate ritual of preparing the body with makeup for women, especially, and dressing them for their final journey. Daigo is shocked to discover what the owner (Tsutomu Yamazaki) does; he cleans and prepares bodies and painstakingly makes them up to look their best. The ritual involves undressing them behind artfully manipulated shrouds in front of the witnesses.
The owner is a quiet, kind man, who talks little but exudes genuine respect for the dead. Daigo has some very interesting experiences from handling a body of what appears to be a beautiful young woman turns out of be a young man to handling the body of an elderly woman who has been dead for a long time. (This should not necessarily be a problem because all of my seniors are of the proper age but I would still handle this with delicacy. Considering how one might fall into a trap about gender issues it could go wrong quickly). The tender and delicate ceremony is handled with such care in front of family and, I assume friends that it is, indeed, fascinating.
Students could also draw parallels with how Americans handle this process. While there is not much discussion of the afterlife a gentleman who frequents a bathhouse where Daigo has visited in the past (to bathe himself after handling a long dead elderly woman) happens to be the person in charge of the local crematorium. He was also the close friend of the lady proprietor of the bathhouse whom Daigo has prepared for cremation. The man speaks of being a gatekeeper for people who he is helping to reach the afterlife. The bathhouse proprietor’s son (who shunned Daigo earlier because of his job as an ‘undertaker’) sees what a beautiful and touching ceremony (for want of another term) Daigo performed in preparing his mother for the crematorium he has greater appreciation for Daigo.
There are a couple of scenes that the students could pick up on especially the scene of bridge where he and another man watch salmon swimming upstream returning to their origins to spawn. Of course one would certainly see the symbolism in that although it might not be so obvious to high school kids although they are quite sophisticated. Another scene shows him on a bridge as if to say he is trying to decide his future especially given the negative attitudes toward his line of work in addition to the fact that his wife has left him. She saw a video that his boss had made where Daigo played a corpse. Eventually he and his wife reconcile and she observes him performing the ritual of preparing the body of a deceased person. She is apparently impressed.
Daigo and his mother were abandoned by his father when he was six. He has some really bad feelings about this traumatic experience. Near the end of the movie his wife receives a letter notifying her husband that his missing father has died. Daigo and his wife head for a coastal town where they encounter a couple of undertakers attempting to manhandle his dead father into some kind of makeshift coffin. He intercedes and his wife remarks to the ‘would be’ undertakers that “my husband is a professional”. Daigo then performs the ceremony/ritual of ‘encoffinment’ for his father. While preparing his father’s body he finds a large pebble that he had given his father (curled up in the dead man’s hand) when he was about six years old. In an earlier scene he was shown exchanging pebbles with his father. This is a very surprising and touching scene.
This is a remarkable film that I inadvertently rented originally from Netflix. The students would be able to get a great deal from viewing it even if only for the artistic experience. But, I feel that they will be able to compare Japanese and American societies and see how while different, we have many things in common.