Depatrtures
© 2008 Departures Film Partners
These days, people rarely stay in one career. "Skill-sets" convey candidates from one company to another. There is less job security than there was in the past, but the upside, is that people broaden their experiences beyond what they might otherwise have done.
Such is the case with Daigo Kobayashi, who loses his job as a musician. He is a skilled musician, but not so highly skilled that he can readily find another job as a musician.
He and his wife move to his hometown, and it is there that Kobayashi finds a job requiring little or no prerequisite skill: preparing the deceased for their final journey.
What could have been a maudlin feature is, instead a beautiful, gently comic journey that the audience shares with Daigo and his wife.
An undertaker with an obsession for tending the living (plants), and the observation of migrating geese are recurring symbols for the fleeting nature of life, and how it should be cherished.
But it is the scenes during which the deceased are "dressed" and "unconfined" prior to internment that are most beautiful. The Japanese, with their ceremonial traditions, share the experience with close ones, in a poignant and elegant ceremony.
Departures is a bittersweet reminder that we will all face death, and in the meantime, we will experience the inevitable loss of those close to us. But the focus in this film, is on honouring the dead and relishing the little moments that end up being the most significant aspects of our lives.