movie reflection: departures

Emmett Moore

Reaction to movie: Departures

This movie is about young man who is living with his wife in Tokyo, Japan. The man is named Daigo Kobayashi and he works by playing a cello in orchestra that is until the orchestra, that he is working for is disbanded. This happens just after he purchases a very expensive cello that is on the same level that the pros use and now he must find a way to continue to make the large payments on the cello. This leads him to move back home to small town, where his mother raised him after his father left them. He is embarrassed about losing his position in the orchestra and ashamed about by going into debt over the cello that he had hastily bought after joining the orchestra, he also feels that he lacked the talent and ability to continue that career. So when he moves back to the town he is ashamed to tell the people, he knows what actually had happened to him. This shows the shameful nature in Japan if one does not succeed at chosen path and how he really has trouble dealing with this issue for most of the movie.  Also the idea of moving home in order to live in his old home was something that I was able to connect too but that will often happen here in the united states as well if this kind of situation occurs to someone. I think the same sense of failure would be felt by anyone who didn’t accomplish all that they hoped for in the career path only to have it cut short. Daigo then must find work in the town in order to pay of his debt and support him and his wife, they move into his mothers old home and he begins his job search. He finds a job ad in the paper entitled departures, which led him to believe that it was travel agency. When it actually is a job as encoffineer, who help prepare the dead and take care of the ceremony this is semi-taboo profession and is culturally shunned by the Japanese. I think this also true in the united states that the death profession is seen as off-putting and is uncomfortable talk in western culture for the most part. Although I don’t think we have the same reaction as the Japanese because we do not have their sense of clean versus dirty which this profession some what conflicts with due to its inherent nature, of cleaning and preparing the dead. Although the profession does allow him to see the more emotional side of people in a culture that has sometimes trouble-expressing emotions helps him to untangle his own complicated feelings about his life. When he first accepts the job and his wife finds out she leaves to go stay with her parent but after some time returns to him and begins to understand why he chose to continue with it. When his father dies his mentor allows him to bring one of his best caskets for his father, which was great honor to give to daigo, and really shows how close they have come from their experiences together.  I think this movie does great job of showing how death is extremely difficult for Japanese people to deal with but in the end that they are able to overcome the grief and how that experience changes them.