2010_2_22 Transit Ritual
Many years ago when I was courting my wife I read at a dinner party held at my future in-laws home in Woodside, California, the poem “Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas. It did not go over well. I was told that the subject matter was “inappropriate” and “offensive and morbid” in polite society. In brief, death as a topic was off-limits at family gatherings, which should be “gay and enjoyable.”
This was a typical reaction for the average American. The incident occurred nearly 50 years ago, yet not much has changed since. Death is still a taboo topic and the bereaved can feel overwhelmed and numb when a love one suddenly dies. Some kind of mental and emotional rehearsal needs to be available so people aren’t left out on a limb and inconsolable. Death is, after all, a big part of life. Almost 20 years ago some Japanese film producers decided to make a film about death, how it is handled in rural Japan, with the typical aesthetic flair of the Japanese. It took a while to sort things out, to find the right screenwriter and Director (Yojiro Takita) and to cast the right people. To their big surprise the film, called “Departures,” not only did well at the box office, it won an Oscar in 2008 for Best Foreign Language Film. The Director discusses the difficulties in making the film in the Special Features and why he and his associates wanted to make a film about death.
A young cellist, Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), loses his job as a cellist in a large orchestra when it is dissolved, so he decides that he and his wife, Mika, should go back to Yamagata, the small town where he was born and raised. He has inherited his mother’s house, which Mika likes, but he needs to find a job. He runs across an ad in the paper about “departures,” which he assumes has something to do with being a travel Agency. But when he meets the boss, Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), he explains that “departures” was a misprint for the word Nokanshi which translates as “the departed.” In other words, the job entails the ceremonial preparation of the deceased for burial or cremation. Leave it to the Japanese to come up with a profession unimaginable in America. The people who perform this ritual are called encoffiners. The owner of the business, going on instinct, is positive Daigo is the man for the job, so he gives him a generous advance to keep him on the job. Diago decides to give the job a try but to not tell Mika what it is because she would be appalled by the very idea. It is not what you would call high prestige employment, plus she has a hang-up about death and dying. The first ceremony involves an old woman who has been dead for two weeks; it is a worst case scenario. Diago barfs repeatedly, but survives the experience. But he hangs in there and eventually his basic sensitivity and keen aesthetic sense proves the boss’ instinct was right: he turns into an artist with the ceremony and the bereaved families are always deeply appreciative of his touch and eloquence as he washes and redresses the body always with great modesty as the family watches him perform the ritual. However, when Mika finds out what he was really doing she left him. She did not want to be touched by anybody so “unclean.” Realizing he has found his niche, he decides to wait her out, hoping she will come back. After he has gone deeper into his craft, she does come back, and when a mutual friend dies she watches her husband perform, and she recognizes how good he is at his trade and how much carefulness and sensitivity he brings to the ritual. When Diago’s estranged father dies, who he hasn’t seen for 30 years, it is Mika who persuades him to go to his father, and when the local undertakers come in and act like boors, he pushes them aside to perform the ritual on his father, with tears running down his cheeks. It is a tender scene and quite cathartic for Diago.
There is much else to be appreciated in “Departures.” There is cello music throughout the film and we see Diago playing his cello out in the landscape. His relationship with his boss and trainer is a major subplot. The role and meaning of the “stone letters” is explored. Interestingly, the first thing encoffiners want to do after doing the ritual is to eat. His boss makes the comment that “the living eat the dead.”
Let me close this review with a personal comment. There is talk in the film about death merely being a transit to the next world. Is there a next world? My reflections on that question have long remained unresolved. I remain an agnostic, feeling there is no way to know if there is an ‘other side.’ A cartoon I saw the other day can sum up my attitude. It was one panel ink drawing showing three people standing alongside a new grave. One of the bystanders says to his companions, “He was a devout agnostic.” The epitaph on the tombstone reads, SEE YOU LATER—MAYBE.
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