Departures

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

The steal of the Best Foreign Language Film category at last year's Academy Awards ceremony, Departures (Okuribito), the Japanese entry directed by Yôjirô Takita (Onmyoji) and written by Kundo Koyama, was a surprise winner, besting critics' darlings Waltz With Bashir (from Israel) and The Class (France), Germany's The Baader Meinhof Complex and Austria's Revanche. This bizarre combination of death, tradition and cello playing did what so many of the winning films in this category have done down the decades: It moved, surprised and enlightened its audience.

But was it the best of these films? Not by a long shot. I'd have ranked them thusly: Baader Meinhof, The Class, Departures, Revanche and Waltz With Bashir*. Having finally seen Departures, I think I understand the dichotomy experienced around the time of the awards -- reading all the negatives from most of the "better" critics, yet constantly hearing such good things about the movie from one after another of what we might call the "average" art-house moviegoer.

Departuresjumps into the story as a tall and attractive Japanese man must leave his job as cellist in a minor orchestra and find another line of work. He ends up as the assistant to a fellow who run a small town operation performing the tradition of readying corpses for cremation, including the proper clothing, make-up and various rites that are nothing like most Americans have ever seen.

I suspect it is this character's skill with the cello that allows him to succeed so well with the wide-armed movements required to perform the unusual disrobing and dressing of the corpses. In any case, he takes to this strange occupation -- think of it as the Japanese version of our own Six Feet Under (without the embalming) -- like the proverbial duck to water. His wife does not, however, nor does his best friend. They loathe what he is doing, and here the Japanese culture of shame comes into play, and rather pointedly, too.

Yet the families of the dead truly need and love what the young man brings them as he grows more confident and skillful in performing the ceremony. He is mentored by an old gentleman who owns the establishment, and helped along by the young woman, with her own secret past, who works in the office. That's pretty much the movie, but until you see it and experience for yourself the remarkable ceremony -- and the reactions of the families -- you can't understand why Academy members were bowled over.

Even then, you may be able to resist its charms. My companion did, finding it utterly sanitized and fake. And I myself admit that there was plenty wrong with the movie: the lead, Masahiro Motoki (above, left, also seen in The Mystery of Rampo) as good-looking as he is and deft in his handling of the ceremony, is not a great actor. Rather, he's one of those who tends to bug his eyes at key emotional moments and let us do the rest of the heavy lifting. Yet he is often so endearing and beautiful, and handles that special tradition so very well, that you may end up, as did I, forgiving him his trespasses. The director, too, tends to overstate some of the comedy. And the finale, which is emotional enough already, does not need the incessant inter-cutting between Kobayashi and his wife. Surely the director could have come up with somewhere else to point the camera -- or just cut the scene by half, as the movie is already too lengthy.

Still, I will remember Departures much more vividly -- and probably longer -- than I will any of the other contenders for last year's Best Foreign Film. You owe it to yourself to experience this movie, faults and all.

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* While I liked Bashir, I was not a huge fan: I actually think the movie would have profited from being live action rather than animation, which -- yes -- made it seem unusually dark and brooding (and repetitive) for an animated film but did not begin to offer the complexities and specifics that might have been found in the performances of live actors.