Okuribito or Departures is the 2009 Academy Award winner of the Best Foreign Language Film. Directed by Yojiro Takita, the film stars Masahiro Motoki in the lead.
Motoki plays Daigo Kobayashi who is a cellist in Tokyo. The orchestra he plays in runs out of business and he if forced to quit his job. He returns to the village he grew up in, to start anew with his wife, who seems supporting and loving. When he arrives at the village, he begins to look for a new job. He finds one in the papers that says, "helps people in their journey" and applies for it, even though he isn't really sure what kind of job it is. He assumes It is something similar to a tourist guide.
He goes for the interview and his boss hires him without even taking a look at his resume. He then finds out the job is that of a mortician/encoffiner; somebody who prepares and cleanses a corpse for the final ritual. He is reluctant at first and hides the nature of his job from his wife. However he begins by assisting his boss and as he watches him clean, beautify and prepare the body for the last journey and something in him feels that there is a reason that he landed the job. Kobayashi decides to become an encoffiner.
Director Yojiro Takita depicts the funeral rites in the most simple yet beautifully elegant manner that a dark phenomenon like Death, appears anything but morbid. The many funeral instances in the movie are touching, not because it is filled with sadness and emotions but because we get to watch the dead being prepared in a manner like we have never seen before. The stories, the pain, the departure has been so sophisticatedly captured that a macabre element called death becomes engaging! You don't want to take your eyes off the screen even for single moment!
Kobayashi has to deal with his own conflicts. Abandoned by his father when he was six, he feels he can never forgive the man for being irresponsible and heartless, however fate has something else prepared for him. So does the fact that he lands up as an encoffiner have a purpose in his life? You will have to watch the film to find that out.
Departures is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Another plausible characteristic of the film is It's background score and music. In fact, it has a scene where Kobayashi is playing the cello in the open fields and yes, I have only one word to describe it, Beautiful! It is evident that It is director, Yojiro Takita's brilliant vision and simple yet aesthetic depiction of the departing process that makes this film, one of the greatest movies ever made.
Like all good movies, this one stays on with you. Watch this and you will know why other foreign movies nominated at the 81st Academy Awards lost to this particular one! Departures is alluringly delightful and enchantingly simple.
