Okuribito (2008) Reviews

• Grandeur and noblesse, when death is seen as a prolongation of life

  roland-scialom2009-11-09

  The human dimension of this film touched me. Some of these things touched me to tears. I list a few of them. 1. The job of the professionals who prepares the dead for their last contact with the family (wake) and their passage to eternity (cremation). In the film, the characters who perform this job, teach the spectator a true ritual of respect and affection with the dead. "Respect and affection with the dead": feelings that the modern life tries to banish from its practices. In the modern world, the dead are inconvenient and dispatched quickly in funerals where the majority of those who are present, entertain themselves with parallel talks, instead of focusing on the reason why they are there. 2. The nobility and grandeur of this job that, in the film, is not associated with any religion, and is directly associated with dealing with human beings. This nobility and grandeur reflects also on to the dead, in the sense that it reminds us that the dead deserve our respect and affection, because a new stage of our relationship with them is starting. 3.The way Daigo grows, as he learns this job, and overcomes (i)the social stigma that society imposes upon the contact with the dead and, also, the people who have contact with the dead, as well as (ii) his personal repulsion with repulsive material aspects of death (odors, rot, etc.) 4. The way Daigo grows, as he incorporates the nobility and grandeur of the job he was forced to do because of the circumstances (he was jobless because the orchestra where he played cello was dismissed). And, when his wife discovers in what consists his job, and tries to force him to quit, he has grown so much that he chooses to keep the job instead to yield to his wife menaces. 5. The way Daigo grows and which leads him back to play the cello and celebrate life more than ever, playing outdoors and playing at home as he used to do when he was a boy. 6. The way Daigo wife grows when she has the opportunity to look close to the job of her husband, and begins to admire him and love him more. Wife who have the opportunity to convince Daigo to take care of his dead father, when Daigo runs away when he gets aware of his father death. Wife, who, when the opportunity showed up, says with pride to the individuals of the funeral, that were almost doing a dirty job with the deceased Daigo father, "my husband will take care of him, he is a professional" 7. The way Daigo grows when he encounter again the love for his father and forgive him for having abandoned the family, while he prepares his old man for the burial. 8. How death can be seen as part of life process, when it causes some people to become aware of how much love they missed, and how much they have been loved without being aware of it. All this happens because Daigo goes back to his hometown, a small town. That is, the return to his origins helps to renew the ties with the traditions and helps the character to put himself together again. I'm omitting many precious details that appear throughout the film. These details must be seen personally, because the film was made with great sensitivity and expertise, and deserves to be seen. Roland.

• The odd job

  ethSin2009-03-19

  "Okuribito", literally "The person who sees off", is about a supposedly untalented cellist's new job. After returning to hometown as a failure in the music world, he applies for a job with vague description. It turns out to be a job posting for "encoffiner", a person who performs rites and rituals before placing the body into the coffin. A 'tainted' job in the eyes of the society, but he eventually develops pride and purpose in this profession. The movie started with subtle humor that had me chuckling for first hour, but I was slowly drawn into the story. It turned out to be a very touching and deep film. The acting in this film was superb. Motoki Tomohiro's performance was especially amazing, hilarious at times, and played the serious and professional scenes very convincingly. I also really liked his narration, which really sets the mood and tone of the following scenes. Yamazaki Tsutomu was also excellent as the protagonist's cool mentor. The film had incredibly nice flow and very well-directed. Music in this movie played a huge role, expressing the protagonist's feelings and harmonized with every scene. It was simply beautiful. This movie gave me a glimpse of the profession of "encoffiner", as a very respectable job, as it requires absolute accuracy, professionalism, and the respect for the dead even though it is looked down by the society. It is the encoffiner who sees off a person's last journey after dressing them up. This movie successfully depicts the pride in one's job, and questions the meaning of death.

• Beautiful Movie- I disagree with reviews

  swang86882011-02-24

  I have read many reviews on this movie and have been surprised by what I saw. I saw many reviews with comments such as this didn't deserve its Oscar win and that this movie was far from a masterpiece because it was too sentimental and exaggerated.One person proposed showing less scenes of him with the cello, speeding up the movie, and cutting out scenes with long stares. I disagree and believe that this movie is beautiful the way it is. This movie is not overbrimming with sentimentality; it has a good amount for such an emotional film. The scenes with the cello and the birds represent the passion and emotions he feel. We don't call Shakespeare's long poems sentimental so why do we call this work of Japanese art that? The more I heard the music I felt like the more I understood the movie. Western movies sometimes disregard time in movies allowing action to follow action. This movie was simply about the meaning of living knowing that we would die. The long, drawn out silences were necessary to convey emotions. If you have studied many Asian cultures, you know that they convey emotions not through words but through silence. The silences give us time to ponder and think about the questions raised, something we are often not given in bang bang action American films.As a musician, I feel like this whole movie is like song filled with much raw emotion.

• The power of ritual in life and death

  Chris Knipp2009-07-06

  Masahiro Motoki is a good comic mime, a useful talent for depicting a Japanese in distress. He plays Daigo Kobayashi, a young cello player who faces the end of his chosen career when the Tokyo symphony orchestra he is part of is dissolved by its owner. He doesn't think he has the talent to get into another orchestra so he sells his expensive cello (which he's still paying for) and moves back to his town in the country. His wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) assents to this with brave smiles. There's a house there for them that his mother left him. And then comes the job. Daigo answers an ad that's promising. "Departures," it says. He assumes something in travel. Easy hours, good pay. The boss hires him immediately and gives him a wad of bills. Only trouble: the work is "encoffination," or putting dead people into caskets for cremation. ("Departures" was a misprint for "Departed.") This is where Motoki gets to make funny faces as he struggles with surprise, discomfort, and out and out nausea. The first corpse his boss Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) takes him along to work on is an elderly lady who was dead two weeks before she was found, and it's summertime. After this ordeal he can't face dinner without retching. He hides from his wife what he is doing. But the pay is good and the boss is a decent man and he needs work so he stays on. In professional lingo Moviefone calls this movie "a feel-good dramady about death." Younger people, already sick of the Academy's easy Oscar choices, mocked its members for giving the Best Foreign prize this year to 'Departures' over the edgy Israeli animation about war trauma, 'Waltz with Bashir.' Yes, 'Departures' is softer; but it has depths and its subject is universal. I'd listen to the octogenarian wisdom of the veteran New York critic Andrew Sarris, who calls this "the most moving film I have ever seen commemorating the bonds between the living and the dead." It's also a lesson in the beauty of Japanese tradition that expresses those bonds. Not so long ago, as Sasaki explains to Daigo, Japanese families prepared their own departed. Now the funeral agents and the casket preparers (Sasaki is the latter) have moved in. But the process still retains traditional honesty and grace. In a process both elegantly respectful and forthright, the body is prepared in front of the assembled family mourners by the funeral professionals. (Sasaki turns out to be a very good one.) In a series of graceful gestures. the body is wiped and cleaned, undressed, turned, and re-clothed, the face caressed, the hands smoothed and placed together just so, all with the deftness of motion that is the Japanese genius, and always discretely shielding the flesh of the deceased from the view of the watchers. Then, well wrapped, the body is gently laid in the casket. The mourners may come forward and say their goodbyes before the box is closed. Shortly thereafter it is taken to a crematorium. Daigo quickly masters the respectful drama of this process, particularly the way the face and hands are manipulated and the clothing is moved, and comes to appreciate the profound emotional meaning it has for the mourners. It's both a leave-taking of the person and an acknowledgment that the deceased is really already gone. Of course immensely complex feelings are involved. Daigo settles into the work. Nonetheless he continues to hide from Mika what he's doing. When she finds out, she goes home to her mother, promising to return only when Daigo quits the job. But the way he enjoys playing his small but tuneful childhood cello again now shows he accepts his new circumstances and is not unhappy. Daigo's roots in the town are symbolized by the old bath house where he goes to cleanse himself after the dressing of the decomposing old lady on his first days's work. It is run by another old lady, Tsuyako (Kazuko Yoshiyuki), the mother of his former best friend. When she suddenly drops dead and Mika returns for the encoffination ceremony, she realizes the beauty and importance of the ritual Daigo performs for Tsuyako's family. Daigo's father ran a café in their house and went off with a young waitress when he was a boy, abandoning him and his mother. He hates his father and doesn't want to know anything about him. But when by chance -- or more accurately screenwriter Kundo Koyama's obvious arrangement -- he learns about his father's death, Mika pushes him to go and do the ceremony himself, with her at his side, and this time the ritual is a profound personal healing process for Daigo himself, whose tears pour down as he performs it. When a few months pass and winter comes Mika comes back to live with Diago after she discovers she's pregnant, even though she still wants him to quit the job. The film underlines how humble and traditional roles are essential to a society, even as it looks down on them, by showing the dignity of the encoffination process; of the man who handles the cremations; of old Tsuyako running the comfortable old bath house that her son wanted to close and turn into more profitable real estate. This film is a tribute to the magic and comfort of human ritual. Hence the encoffination process is shown repeatedly, even behind the end credits. It's what the film is about: everything else is footnotes to this ceremony. Sometimes the mourners make it tumultuous, embarrassing, or comic. But it retains the beauty of a culture that knows the value of theater. Takita's movie is more than the sum of its sometimes sentimental or obvious parts. In the beauty of its most humdrum moments, with its focus on everyday family necessities (it celebrates food too), 'Departures' is not at all remote from the quintessentially Japanese quotidian grandeur celebrated in the film masterpieces of Yasajiro Ozu.

• A very powerful film

  Gordon-112010-03-20

  This film is about an unemployed man taking up a job as a person who prepares body before putting into the coffin. "Departures" is a beautiful film. It is about the last journey before a person is reduced to ashes, yet it never feels gloomy. In fact, it shows that all humans die one day, and it is how we view it and how those left behind cope with death that matters. Kobayashi treats the bodies with such enormous respect and dignity, which touches me a lot. "Departures" is a film to feel. It makes you think and feel about such a taboo topic which is not normally discussed. I commend the filmmakers for making "Departures". It's a must see.