Departures (2008 film)
·
Introduction
Departures (Japanese: おくりびと Hepburn: Okuribito, "one World Health Organization
sends off") can be a 2008 Japanese drama film directed by Yōjirō Takita
and prima Masahiro Motoki, Ryōko Hirosue, and Tsutomu Yamazaki. Loosely based
on Coffinman, a memoir by Shinmon Aoki, the film follows a young man who
returns to his hometown after a failed career as a cellist and stumbles across
work as a nōkanshi—a ancient Japanese ritual funeral undertaker. He is
subjected to prejudice from those around him, together with from his adult
female, because of strong social taboos against people who deal with death.
Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) loses his job as a instrumentalist once
his orchestra is disbanded. He and his woman Mika (Ryōko Hirosue) move from
Tokyo to his town in Yamagata, wherever they sleep in his childhood home that
was left to him once his mother died two years earlier. It is fronted by a
coffee shop that Daigo's father had operated before he ran off with a waitress
when Daigo was six; since then the two have had no contact. Daigo feels emotion
towards his father and guilt for not taking higher care of his mother. He still
keeps a "stone-letter"—a stone that is claimed to convey which means
through its texture—which his father had given him a few years before.
Daigo finds a commercial for employment "assisting departures".
Assuming it to be employment in a very agency, he goes to the interview at the
NK Agent office and learns from the secretary, Yuriko Kamimura (Kimiko Yo),
that he are going to be making ready bodies for incineration in an exceedingly
ceremony called encoffinment. Though reluctant, Daigo is hired on the spot and
receives a cash advance from his new boss, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki). Daigo is
furtive regarding his duties and hides truth nature of the task from Mika.
His 1st assignment is to help with the encoffinment of a girl World Health
Organization died reception and remained undiscovered for 2 weeks. He is beset
with nausea and later humiliated when strangers on a bus detect an unsavoury
scent on him. To clean himself, he visits a public tub that he had frequented
as a toddler. It is in hand by Tsuyako Yamashita (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), the mother
of 1 of Daigo's former classmates.
Over time, Daigo becomes comfortable with his profession as he completes a
number of assignments and experiences the gratitude of the families of the
deceased. Though he faces social ostracism, Daigo refuses to quit, even after
Mika discovers a training DVD in which he plays a corpse and leaves him to
return to her parents' home in Tokyo. Daigo's former classmate Yamashita (Tetta
Sugimoto) insists that the mortician find a more respectable line of work and,
until then, avoids him and his family.
· Production
Cultural background
Japanese funerals ar very ritualized affairs that ar generally—though not
always—conducted in accordance with Buddhist rites. In preparation for the
funeral, the body is washed and the orifices are blocked with cotton or gauze.
The encoffining ritual (called nōkan), as depicted in Departures, is rarely
performed, and even then only in rural areas. This ceremony is not
standardized, but generally involves professional morticians (納棺師 nōkanshi) ceremonially making ready the body, dressing the dead in white,
and sometimes applying make-up. The body is then placed on solid in an
exceedingly casket, beside personal possessions and things necessary for the
trip to the lifespan.
· Conception and preproduction
In the early Nineties, a 27-year-old Motoki and
his friend cosmopolitan to India; simply before going, at the friend's
recommendation he browse Shin'ya Fujiwara's reminder (Latin for "remember
that you will die"). whereas in Bharat, he visited Varanasi, where he saw
a ceremony in which the dead were cremated and their ashes floated down the
Ganges. Witnessing this ceremony of death against a scene of active crowds
going regarding their lives deeply affected Motoki. When he returned to Japan,
he read numerous books on the subject of death, and in 1993 wrote a book on the
affiliation between life and death: Tenkuu Seiza—Hill Heaven. Among the books
he read was Shinmon Aoki's autobiographical Coffinman: The Journal of a
Buddhist Mortician (納棺夫日記 Nōkanfu Nikki), which exposed Motoki to the world of the nōkanshi for the
first time. Motoki aforementioned he found a way of mystery Associate in
Nursingd near-eroticism to the profession that he felt had an affinity with the
film world.[
· Casting
Ryōko Hirosue, who
had formerly worked with Takita, was cast as Mika.
Motoki, by then in
his early 40s and having built a reputation as a realist, was cast as Daigo.Veteran
actor Tsutomu Yamazaki was selected for the role of Sasaki; Takita had worked
with Yamazaki on we have a tendency to don't seem to be Alone (1993). Although
the character of Mika was initially planned as being the same age as Daigo, the
role went to pop singer Ryōko Hirosue, who had previously acted in Takita's
Himitsu (Secret) in 1999.[i] Takita explained that a younger actress would
better represent the lead couple's growth out of quality.In a 2009 interview,
Takita stated that he had cast "everyone who was on my wish list".
Motoki studied the
art of encoffinment first-hand from a undertaker, and assisted in an
encoffining ceremony; he later stated that the experience imbued him with
"a sense of mission ... to do to use the maximum amount human heat as I
might to revive [the deceased] to a lifelike presence for presentation to her
family". Motoki then drilled himself by practising on his talent manager
till he felt he had perfect the procedure, one whose knotty, delicate movements
he compared to those of the japanese chanoyu. Takita attended ceremonial occasion
ceremonies to grasp the emotions of mourning families, whereas Yamazaki ne'er
participated within the encoffinment coaching. Motoki conjointly learned the
way to play a string for the sooner elements of the film.
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