Departures - A wonderful movie about death...and life

[Lordhawk]

Caught the movie "Departures" (Okuribito) yesterday afternoon.

 

One word...superb. And that from a movie which is essentially about death. Funny how death can teach us so smuch about life.

 

The movie fully deserves the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar it just received. Japanese movie fans can catch the ever stoic Tsutomu Yamazaki in his role as the 'Jedi Master' to Masahiro Motoki's musician turned apprentice mortician. Ryoko Hirosue is luminescent as Mika, the supportive wife with unspoken fears, and Kimiko Yo rounds up the cast as the longsuffering secretary with secrets of her own.

 

And the music! The subdued yet powerful score by Joe Hisaishi is a joy in itself, and works wonderfully to complement the movie's pace and mood.

 

Try to go on a weekday, without too many philistine teenagers and NS boys just looking for some entertainment. But should you meet some as I did, they will not help being drawn into its narrative. The chatter around me quickly went silent as the theme of the movie, and its treatment of death and closure slowly but surely dawned on us. I think there was nary a dry eye in the theatre as the credits rolled.

 

Watch it before it closes for lack of popularity, as is the wont of arthouse fare in Singapore.

 

IMDB entry.

[Rncw]

watched it during the sneak, was good...but

 

hirosue's not that good...

 

apparently after this movie...there were many japanese showed interest in this vocation...

 

there were even tours to yamagata, to visit the NK Agent office building, the place where mokkun played the cello in the open...the river..etc..

[Lordhawk]

watched it during the sneak, was good...but

 

hirosue's not that good...

 

apparently after this movie...there were many japanese showed interest in this vocation...

 

there were even tours to yamagata, to visit the NK Agent office building, the place where mokkun played the cello in the open...the river..etc..

Ryoko's stuck in a rather limited role...but its a little deceptive.

 

At first you have her figured for just a simpering housewife, or a kawaii-neh kinda airhead who's somehow landed herself a moody artist husband, and then watches her dream disintegrate before her very eyes. But watch closely and you'll realise its more than that. The character of Mika slowly unveils itself, and you get the sense of her inner struggle to understand her husband (and his newfound dedication to his unusual trade), and the change it wroughts in her. The acting is subtle, and there are not many opportunities to shine, but you never doubt her portrayal as being less than authentic.

 

And oh yah, she's real pretty.