Depatures understands that life is not one journey for one person, that it is something we all collectively share. That all humanity is one endless ocean, and that we, the people in our lives, and the love we feel for one another creates ripples that touch, entwine, and push far out beyond our comprehension.
Departures is about Daigo Kobayashi, an unemployed chellist who ends up respectfully and ritualistically preparing the bodies of the deceased to be placed in coffins, in an intimate ceremony in front of their families.
While reluctant and repulsed at first, Daigo sees the reverence in his bosses's work and the way that love and respect translates to the departed's families as they say their final goodbyes.
As he settles into his new career, Daigo returns to his cello. Music (and all art for that matter) is the only way to attempt to express our souls. Ideas and feelings we create at our birth and send beyond when we're gone.
Departures expresses itself purely in actions and feelings. When Daigo (played by Masahiro Motoki) goes to his first job, he can't verbally express all the feelings that stir from experience to his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) when he comes home that night, because he hasn't admitted to her what he's doing for work. The desperate way Daigo embraces Mika speaks to everything we need to know about how he's feeling, and the way we all feel when confronted with the certainty of death, because it reminds us to grasp at life ferociously.
I will cherish that scene and this film as one of those rare lights in media, that will burn within me for as long as I'm able to carry it. And when I'm gone, it will continue to remind us to live, and love, and release our souls to the stars, and beyond.
Departures is about Daigo Kobayashi, an unemployed chellist who ends up respectfully and ritualistically preparing the bodies of the deceased to be placed in coffins, in an intimate ceremony in front of their families.
While reluctant and repulsed at first, Daigo sees the reverence in his bosses's work and the way that love and respect translates to the departed's families as they say their final goodbyes.
As he settles into his new career, Daigo returns to his cello. Music (and all art for that matter) is the only way to attempt to express our souls. Ideas and feelings we create at our birth and send beyond when we're gone.
Departures expresses itself purely in actions and feelings. When Daigo (played by Masahiro Motoki) goes to his first job, he can't verbally express all the feelings that stir from experience to his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) when he comes home that night, because he hasn't admitted to her what he's doing for work. The desperate way Daigo embraces Mika speaks to everything we need to know about how he's feeling, and the way we all feel when confronted with the certainty of death, because it reminds us to grasp at life ferociously.
I will cherish that scene and this film as one of those rare lights in media, that will burn within me for as long as I'm able to carry it. And when I'm gone, it will continue to remind us to live, and love, and release our souls to the stars, and beyond.
