DEPARTURES: JOURNEYS OF A DIFFERENT KIND
October 30th 2009 07:58
Masahiro Motoki as Daigo Kobayashi in Departures
There were more than a few peculiar looks when Departures won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at this years Academy Awards. In a category stacked with fine nominees, including Waltz With Bashir and The Class, Departures was almost seen as making up the numbers.
But the win was understandable. Departures is a gentle, poignant film that quietly challenges the audience rather than confronting it with stark personal and political drama like that witnessed in Waltz With Bashir. As such, it’s usually engaging and frequently engrossing, centring its narrative around the Japanese funeral custom of washing and dressing the deceased’s body in preparation for the afterlife.
Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a Tokyo-based cellist whose purpose in life is thrown into doubt when his orchestra is disbanded. With little left to keep him in the big city, Daigo, along with his ridiculously upbeat wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), moves back to his home town to live in the house of his recently deceased mother.
But life in the small town is slow, and the only job Daigo can find is in ‘Departures.’ Thinking he’s being interviewed to become a travel consultant, Daigo soon finds that the company deals in journeys of the more transcendental kind. The young man is to be the right-hand man of Sasaki-san (Tsutomu Yamazaki), an aging master, in preparing the recently deceased for their trip to the afterlife.
The early scenes of Departures are laced with plenty of observational humour as Daigo struggles to handle the grim peculiarities of his apprenticeship, but the film has more emotional territory it wishes to explore and soon settles into a quiet, methodical rhythm.
Screenwriter Kundo Koyama walks a fairly predictable path as he ticks off the builds and pay-offs. The most immediate concern is Daigo’s anger over a father who abandoned him as a child. The protagonist plays it down, but the resentment seems to bring with it a mental block that prevents him from making sense of his life.
Of course, Sasaki-san becomes something of a surrogate father to Daigo, teaching the young man to take pride in their profession, despite the shame it seems to bring. It’s obvious stuff, but director Yojiro Takita handles this aspect of the story with a light enough touch to keep it from becoming mawkish.
Not nearly as convincing, however, is the troubles Daigo’s new job brings to his relationship with Mika. Given the support she provides at the start of the film you’d think she would at least be a little understanding of her husband’s grim vocation. It turns out, however, that Mika may be a little unhinged, such is the strength of her reaction to Daigo’s wonky news.
All in a day's work for Sasaki-san (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) in Departures
The film’s most moving scenes are those based around the careful Japanese tradition of preparing the dead for their journey to the afterlife. This is when the planets in Depatures’ solar system truly align, creating some beautiful, artistic moments that are hard not to fall in love with. A large part of the running time is spent on these scenes, but it’s well worth it; there’s a deep respect for the process on the part of the filmmakers and you’re left with the impression that they too fell in love with the tradition.
But time well spent in the scenes of mourning is not balanced by a thriftiness elsewhere. Departures is too long by at least twenty minutes, the pace being so slack the film sometimes threatens to come to a halt completely. There’s perhaps a patient method to the madness, but Departures belabours the point at times, leaving the audience shifting in their seats and clamouring for development.
Thankfully, a brilliant cast frequently comes to the rescue. Masahiro Motoki is a great performer, his brooding looks tempered by a dorky physicality, while providing an odd couple dynamic for much of the film is the slow-burning Tsutomu Yamazaki, a seasoned player who easily gathers the audience’s attention. In the smaller role of Mika, Ryoko Hirosue is certainly likable, but she’s frequently hampered by her character’s somewhat fuzzy logic.
Part of the problem with Departures may simply be one of cross-cultural exchange. But then to talk about Departures in terms of its problems is really a little unfair. It may leave you a little miffed about its Oscar-winning status, but this is still a production grafted with skill and respect by its filmmakers, its deft handling of a topic as potentially morbid as death confirming it as a work of some distinction.
Check out the trailer below:
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