Departures

File:Departures.jpg

"Death is for the living and not for the dead so much." --Roger Ebert, quoting Gates of Heaven in his review of Departures.

Departures (Japanese: おくりびと, Hepburn: Okuribito, "one who sends off") is a Japanese film directed by Yojiro Takita, which won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2009.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a cello player in a classical orchestra in Tokyo, but when his cash-strapped ensemble is disbanded, he finds himself without a job. He decides to give up on music and move with his wife Mika (Ryouko Hirosue) back to his hometown of Yamagata in northern Japan.

He settles in his late mother's house, and applies for a job in what appears to be a travel agency. In fact, the job offer had been deliberately advertised in a misleading way: the business is actually that of a mortician, who couldn't find an assistant due to the traditional taboo on death in Japanese culture. Daigo, at first reluctant, warms to the job, as he discovers it implies a deep form of respect and care for the deceased. In a heavily ritualized ceremony, his boss and he prepare the bodies for encoffinment, before the eyes of the relatives.

However, he can't bring himself to admit to Mika the grisly nature of his new job. She finds out, eventually, and freaks out, leaving him on his own until he's changed his mind. But by then he feels he has discovered his calling, and keeps the job. Mika eventually comes back, telling him she's pregnant; she once again tries to talk him into quitting, but when an old woman she had befriended dies, she gets to watch her husband at work, and sheds her prejudices.

Not to be confused with the travel series of the same name.

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Contains examples of:

• Badass Grandma: Mrs. Yamashita, old lady who runs the public baths single-handedly until she collapses.
• Benevolent Boss: Daigo's boss is the stuff of employment dreams. For instance, when Daigo's first job in the field turns out to dealing an severely decayed body, his boss gives him a cash bonus and the rest of the day off noting that he would never have given a rookie a job that tough on the first day if he could have helped it.
• Driven to Suicide: The Wholesome Crossdresser
• The Faceless / The Blank: Daigo's dad in his memories until the end.
• The Film of the Book: The movie is apparently based on the augo-biographical book Coffin Man by Shinmon Aoki, which includes a similarly harrowing first day for the protagonist, who becomes an encoffiner almost by accident after losing his job. Masahiro Motoki (Daigo's actor) read it after having witnessed a traditional Indian funeral in the Ganges and writing a book about such an experience, then felt the story could be adapted well into a film...
• The Fun in Funeral: The lead character finds himself in all sorts of funerals, from the quiet and charming to the loud and raucous.
• Furo Scene: Daigo finds out the public baths he used to patronize as a child are still open, and becomes a regular once again.
• Girlfriend Cut: Used excessively, almost to the point of being annoying.
• Heroic BSOD: After his first day Daigo is in shock, can't stand the sight of a chicken Mika is preparing, and is so comforted/overwhelmed by her"purity" that he practically ravishes her in the kitchen.
  • When Mika finds out that he's not, in fact, working at a travel agency but handling corpses she flips out ("Unclean!!") and leaves. She gets better and returns after finding out she's pregnant.
• Humiliation Conga: Daigo "volunteers" to play the corpse in an instructional video, which includes having to be painted white and wear a diaper. On top of all that Mika, who doesn't know the truth, finds the video, flips out and leaves.
• Meaningful Funeral: Several of them in the course of the story, especially the last one, that of Daigo's father.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Sort of: The "message stone" that Daigo and his father exchanged and that Daigo's father still had, decades later.
• Parental Abandonment: Daigo keeps an enduring grudge against his father for going away all those years ago. Until he finds out he died, and then finds the second stone letter in the corpse's hands.
  • Daigo's office mate Yuriko is herself a Missing Mom and deeply regrets it. She says (and it's implied that Daigo's dad could have been the same way) that she can't return due to being from a small town where she would be viciously persecuted.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: Averted. The characters leave Tokyo early on, and most of the film takes place in a small city from Yamagata prefecture.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: The deceased pretty girl in the opening scenes and the receiver of a red dress in the trailers is actually a boy.