Wrapping

The contenders for the Foreign Language Oscar in 2008 were The Baader Meinhof Complex, Revanche, Waltz With Bashir, The Class and Departures. Departures, which I saw on the weekend, was the winner. It’s a good film but not in the competition when you compare it with Waltz with Bashir and The Class – both films that I loved and which experimented a bit with form. Both a little more interesting.

Having said that, Departures made me think of my mother, it made me cry and only resorted to sentimentality in the last part of the film. It’s about a very good looking musician (Masahiro Motoki) who becomes an “encoffinator”, a "nokanshi", a professional who prepares the recently deceased for their funerals. The most interesting part of the film is the insights into Japanese traditions and also into contemporary culture. In traditional society it seems that one of the rituals is to wash the body of the dead person in front of the family. This is a highly ritualised event taking place in the tatami room with the kneeling members of the family in rows and the nokanshi at the front, slowly and methodically wiping the body, plugging the orifices and dressing the person in a fresh kimono.

It’s likely that this tradition is dying (sorry) away as the Japanese gradually take on the Western habit of whipping the body away quickly to the funeral parlour. I’m guessing about this after spending some time trying to research what is current in Japan. Departures implies that this is the case. (I found a good description of a Japanese funeral on the website Traditions and customs from all over the world. I also discovered that almost all descriptions of Japanese funerals come from the same source and are repeated word for word all over the web – one writer with a lot of clout.)

The lead actor developed the idea for the film while he was in India. Varanasi is a place where dying is front and centre and the rituals have both a spiritual and a pragmatic edge to them that has quite an impact. The bodies of dead people are placed on funeral pyres and burnt and it is not uncommon to see people bearing the wrapped dead body through the alley ways to the funeral ghat. It's often confronting but real. The film made me think about my mother; I didn’t see her after she died (through choice) and always feel ambivalent about that decision. Film director, Yojiro Takita films the nokanshi scenes slowly and beautifully though not everything is romantised; the first corpse that the fledging nokanshi deals with has been dead for two weeks and is not a pretty sight. It reminded me that I also saw Sunshine Cleaning this year, an American film that deals with the ways in which we manage cleaning up after deaths though this is not its central interest.

Writing in an online magazine Curator, Makoto Fujimura says:

“The Japanese have the ability, and the unwritten code of honor, to make all acts, however mundane, beautiful and refined. There’s no reason why they cannot apply the same principle to acting as they do to every other task. When I was coming back to the airport from Tokyo, I saw several elderly workers clean the elevator belts with sanitized towels because of the flu threat. They had developed the “art” of the belt cleaning, each with a distinctive style. Every subway announcer, Koshien (high school baseball) cheerleader, department store elevator operator, and gas station attendant all take pride in what they do and create unique signature to their “art.”

Japan is also a gift culture, where things are wrapped and presented beautifully. It is a country full of artful wax models of dishes served in restaurants (a welcome sight for gaijin visitors), and anything bought in the stores is wrapped carefully and diligently. So it is no surprise that there is such an art form of nokanshi, a delicate ritual of wrapping the dead.”

This is one of the most interesting things I’ve read about Departures. It connects with what I think of as the introverted nature of Japanese society; the way in which emotions are hidden away too. For example, we are given little idea that the nokanshi’s wife is unhappy in her new home until she discovers what her husband is really doing (she thought he worked in travel) and then she lets go with her grief and anger. Emotions are tightly wrapped; as tightly wrapped as the stiff hands of the dead bodies in the film. There is an artificial gloss on many things. Takita depicts this part of Japan as less glossy and more real. The bath-house, which is clearly slowly dying too, is shabby but comforting as is the place where the nokanshi and his wife live.

In an interview with Takita, he is asked about the location.

“The location should be in wild nature, since the theme relates to "death." I especially focused on snow. [Snow] sometimes looks so beautiful, but at other times, it makes life so difficult. Snow can be a symbol of the difficulty of life. Now, Japan is quite tired, both in Tokyo and in other local areas, in terms of the economy and other aspects. In such a situation, people tend to forget about important things that have been there. As you know, the theme [of the film] is "death," but I wanted to portray fragility and beauty that are fading away. So I selected the Shnai area in Yamagata prefecture for the location."

Fragility and beauty are fading away. In an interview with a contemporary nokanshi, Okuyama, some aspects of contemporary life are highlighted.

“The bodies sometimes reflect the social situation of the deceased. Last spring, Okuyama treated the bodies of many deceased people who had committed suicide by inhaling hydrogen sulfide gas they had created by mixing household chemicals. Last winter, meanwhile, the number of bodies of middle-aged men she dealt with increased. The deceased were dispatched workers who apparently had lost hope and killed themselves after being laid off from their companies, Okuyama said.”

Japan is changing rapidly – like all societies – and there are casualties.

Takita, who also made The Yen Family, doesn’t have quite the same touch as my favourite Japanese film maker Koreada. Departures is no match for a film like After Life. At the end, it succumbs to an unnecessary sentimentality and there’s probably one too many lingering glance. But is a film that takes you places and makes you think about important topics. And made me remember and cry over my mother, whose birthday is would have been on the 26th of October.