Departures, Guest Entry

Mary asked me to write a movie review which is quite unusual, as I don't watch all that many movies, and I'm jaded enough that it takes a lot to get me to rave over one. But Saturday night I had the opportunity to see 'Departures', a Japanese film well worth watching.


Here is what one reviewer had to say:


Winner of the 2008 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film: "DEPARTURES" is an exquisite look into a man whose professional career takes an unexpected turn into the world of preparing dead bodies for funerals. The movie is a brilliant and seamless blending of several different themes: how people deal with loss and tragedy (the funeral scenes are quite moving); how the living cling to life through food, music and human contact - and how they instinctively avoid anything to do with dying until it is unavoidable, and how indeed it can be quite messy in several different ways. "moving and absorbing.


My take? One of the best movies I have seen, if not ever, then in a long,long time. The story line was interesting and, as mentioned in the above review, there are several themes addressed within a novel arena. On one hand, it is the story of a young man in the midst of traumatic and transforming career and personal change, and the way he and those he loves deal with it. But the major theme is death. The funeral scenes are sad, funny, but most of all transfixing: a look at the compassion and ceremony surrounding preparation of the dead in a culture somewhat different than our own. I left feeling warmed, hopeful, and enriched. Pretty hot stuff for a six dollar Saturday night in Zumbrota.


My one major complaint was the quality of the subtitles. They were in white lettering which often played against a light background, making some of the lines unreadable. The viewer was still able to understand what was happening, but it was distracting at times, and I would have liked a clearer, easier read.

A reviewer of this film on the website 'Spirituality and Practice' wrote: English novelist and poet D. H. Lawrence once observed: "The human soul needs beauty even more than it needs bread." When we left this film, we exclaimed, "It is just so beautiful!

by my friend Julie