For Reel

Director: Yôjirô Takita

Most Americans hadn’t heard of “Departures” when it upset “The Class” and “Waltz With Bashir” by winning the foreign language Oscar at last year’s Academy Awards. Ironically enough, those who have now seen it have likely forgotten it completely. Although a commendable effort with good performances and a few touching sequences, it doesn’t have an ounce of the audacity that it’s competitors had.

“Departures” concerns the dignified, honored tradition of corpse preparation. Just as that ritual involves a series of meticulous, delicate steps, the film progresses in an equally agreeable procedure. It consistently tests it’s footing before putting it’s weight down, confronting taboo subjects without any sort of courageousness. Each development is telegraphed twenty minutes prior, the film wound tightly in it’s formula. Well-crafted as it may be, it’s easy to want to resent such a modestly good effort when it was championed over some of last year’s most innovative.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) makes a humble living as a cellist. When his orchestra goes under due to lack of funding, Daigo must resort to the newspaper for new work. A call for “departures” peaks his interest, under the assumption that it may be in reference to a travel agency, but he is surprised to discover that the company specializes in preparing the deceased for cremation.

Despite initial hesitance, Daigo reluctantly takes the work. His new boss, the loving mentor Mr. Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki), shows him the ropes. As Daigo develops his skills and begins to appreciate the tradition, he is driven further away from his wife, Mika (Ryoko Hirosue), who would not be pleased to learn about her husband’s new career path.

“Departures” is too sentimental, but nevertheless it’s mostly successful as broad melodrama, capitalizing fully on it’s easy pathos. In one of the film’s most touching sequences, Daigo discovers, during a ritual, that the corpse of a woman has a penis. He confronts the family and asks whether to dress the body as a man or a woman. Just about all of the sequences involving the actual corpse-dressings are knockouts, in fact – but, as the film drifts further into familiarity, involving domestic disputes and absent fathers, the length becomes very apparent.